Lantana

This is a complex drama. Although the film involves a murder, the story is more the exploration of a number of interconnected relationships.

The film starts with a woman's body lying in a lantana bush, but we don't know who it is until the end. The story builds up to that point, and centres on a quartet of families starting with Leon Zat (Anthony La Paglia), a police detective, and his wife Sonja (Kerry Armstrong).

"Lantana", the title of the film, refers to the noxious weed that grows like crazy and eventually strangles and entangles everything else in the garden - it's the perfect metaphor for the way all the various relationships are being strangled and entangled by infidelity, deception and unhappiness.

The structure of the film is similar to Robert Altman's "Short Cuts" where different stories intersect at critical times.

Although the film has a sense of mystery, I found "Lantana" just too serious and humourless. Unlike "Short Cuts", there really isn't a light touch in the whole thing. Anthony La Paglia's Leon Zat makes the characters played by Nicholas Cage seem deliriously happy by comparison. I am also wary in Australian movies of scenes set in psychiatrist's offices; it often allows the 'meaningful' dialogue to be delivered in very large chunks.

After a while, for me at any rate, the interconnectivity - where no meeting is random - comes across as just a little too laboured. What saves "Lantana" is that everyone plays it low-key - the actors give the movie class.

The brilliant Barbara Hershey has competition for attention from two other women: Kerry Armstrong and Rachael Blake. Kerry Armstrong is one of the most interesting actors in Australian film and television, and she ages beautifully.

The film steps up a notch when the mystery kicks in about halfway through, and it becomes partly a police procedural.

"Lantana" was loved up by the critics and won every Australian film award going at the time it was released. It is the sort of smart, multi-layered film that the cognoscenti could discuss at some length over lattes on Sunday morning.

The film is well made and the acting is flawless, but it seems interminably stretched out, an effect aided by the chilled out score. My main problem with "Lantana" is that it seems to self-consciously scream out "How clever is my script?" I can see the gears turning.

Most successful Australian films are quintessentially Australian. From Walkabout in 1970 via Peter Weir's pictures such as Picnic at Hanging Rock; The Last Wave and Gallipoli, right up to releases around Lantana such as The Tracker; Dirty Deeds; Rabbit-Proof Fence; Aussie Rules; The Dish and the Steve Irwin vehicle, The Crocodile Hunter Collision Course. Their appeal is partly based on an exploration of Australian culture or rather a contrast of cultures either within Australia or with the rest of the world. Like much of British Cinema, Australian Cinema has taken refuge in nationhood.

Lantana is different. Although it is set in present day Sydney it could, with the exception of the film's metaphorical title, be set in any Western urban conurbation. The film does not depend on either supposed Aussie character traits or well-known locations. Postcard Sydney is eschewed in favour of suburbia and mid-town. It is also bold as, although it contains a crime detection story, the film is primarily about an interwoven set of relationships gone wrong. The police investigation does not begin until halfway through the film, and this allows the relationships to be explored in detail before the more conventional narrative begins.

Leon (Anthony LaPaglia) is a morose police detective whose marriage to Sonja (the excellent Kerry Armstrong) is failing. His brief affair with Jane (Rachael Blake) in the opening sequence, is a symptom not a cause. Sonja confides her worries of the affair to Dr. Somers (Barbara Hershey), whose own relationship is soured by suspicion and tragedy. The only solid relationship is that of Jane's neighbours, whose domestic circumstances are the most difficult. This background unfolds in the first half of the film and the individual relationships are then laid over the plot allowing both an intertwining and explanation. The strength of the film is that as the characters have already been well realised, so their actions and emotions can be understood in the second half of the film. This is territory often reserved to a good novel, and is rarely brought off in the cinema and it is so well done here that a couple of narrative co-incidences can be forgiven.

The lantana is a large native Australian flowering plant, whose attractive and benign appearance conceals a thorny interior. The shrub is cleverly threaded into the plot and serves as a reminder that in relationships, things might not be all they seem and that care is needed to prevent hurt. In keeping with the film's realistic style there are no feel-good resolutions but the emotional intensity carries it to an ending of some hope rather than desolation.

"Lantana" is one of those rare films which which transcends entertainment with meaningful messages, however subliminal, while avoiding the dumbing-down, flocking, hype, titillation, and other excesses of the usual Tinseltown product and relying solely on good story telling. The film uses the nonlinear Magnoia-esque jigsaw puzzle approach showing a piece of each player one at a time while methodically completing the final puzzle picture. Though the film involves a cop, a shrink, a missing woman, infidelity, adultery, grief, suspicion, etc., "Lantana" isn't about any of these things; a fact which is made clear in the end when the final puzzle piece is dropped into place. A must see for mature realists into serious drama.

LANTANA (2001) **** (out of four)

"Lantana" does not embody a story like most movies; it isn't about anything in particular. It's a movie about characters. Not larger-than-life super heroes, but characters who succumb to temptation, cheat on their wives, doubt their spouses, make mistakes and suffer consequences. In other words, "Lantana" is about real people. Normal, imperfect people like all of us. Not that everyone behaves like the characters here, but few films capture transgression with such compassion and sympathy.

Set in Australia, a colorful pallet of characters paints a vivid, coherent psychological portrait of infidelity, deceit, and estrangement. At the center of the film is four couples, immersed in guilt and depravity for different reasons. Everybody has something to hide. The conflicts of these people illuminate the personal crisis of a police detective (Anthony LaPaglia) as he investigates the disappearance of a local woman.

Apart from the investigation, the couples have little connection with each other. They do have one thing in common, however, that none of them communicates with their loved ones. "Lantana" proves communication enforces commitment, but a lack thereof results in disaster. This sincere, uncompromising picture places the lack of communication at the center of family problems.

The film won various Australian Film Awards for its performances, screenplay, and direction by Ray Lawrence. Lawrence clearly intended the title-referring to a tropical shrub with beautiful flowers that hide dense, thorny undergrowth-to represent the characters' private lives hidden behind an outward appearance. He's got the wrong metaphor. These characters do not appear sunny on the inside, outside, front or back. They don't wear masks or attempt to cover their frowning states of mind. They are unhappy people, and the movie never pretends otherwise.

Those qualities make the characters absorbing. Instead of providing them with outlets and opportunities to hide their faults, the film pokes, prods, and starves them of their happiness until they reach a breaking point. For some, the breaking point results in an explosion of anger. For others, it's subtle and personal. "Lantana" investigates real people who deal with real situations and encounter real consequences.

None of the characters are model citizens, yet we care deeply about each of them. When someone cries, we feel sorry for them. When someone begs for forgiveness, we try to forgive them. When someone questions their spouse, we are concerned with both sides of the marriage. These people make big mistakes; the results of their mistakes are never certain. The movie does not neatly pull things together at the end. It doesn't allow the characters an easy way out. These characters must dig themselves out of their problems.

"Lantana" is one of the most compelling, involving films of the year. It's based on a play called "Speaking in Tongues" by Andrew Bovell, who also wrote the fluid screenplay. I want to see this play. If these characters feel so alive, so real, so tormented on screen, think of their power in person.

This film shows Australia, not as a sunny soap opera land, but life as it happens. There were many twists and turns throughout and showed just how small a community can be. Particularly enjoyed the sharp Aussie wit and black humour that flowed with the unfolding of the plot.

Antony LaPaglia plays a believable role and as sub plot you see his character change in the space of two hours.

All in all a very enjoyable film.