Lantana

This movie was NOT a thriller, it was a bore. It is about cheating when you're in a relationship. The movie's main plot is not the doctor's disappearance. Skip it. Barbara Hershey barely had 15 minutes of on screen time, which was a waste. Geoffrey Rush may as well have not even been in the movie.

This is one of those rarities, a movie which walks the tightrope between being a perfect drama and an absorbing mystery and does it spectacularly well. The first hour is dedicated to establishing the various characters like the cop, his wife, the woman he is fooling around with, her estranged husband, the neighbors of the women etc. The interplay between the characters and the different situations are very fascinating. The second half is about the disappearance of one of the characters and how the others interact and react. The acting is brilliant with Anthony Lapaglia surprisingly getting a meatier role and performing much better than Geoffrey Rush. The screenplay is simply fantastic. It is a travesty that this was not nominated for any of the major awards. perhaps it being from Australia was a reason. This is a must watch movie for buffs who love their drama with a touch of intrigue. 4 out of 5. Very well made movie.

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.

This rates highly on my 'most boring movie ever' list. Went to see it with a friend, and we were actually on the brink of placing a bet on who would scream or run out first. By sheer determination, we made it to the final (and hardly deserved) credits without snoring. One inconsequential, meaningless scene after the other, with 'look how interesting we edited it, and isn't this a cliffhanger' oozing from it. Unfounded pretense in its purest form. I'm not fond of action movies at all, but this is ridiculous. Nothing happens at all, but we're supposed to feel at least ten intricate layers of tension all of the time? That's what the movie appears to suggest, but it does not deliver. There's the guy from The Flying Doctors, or whatever that awful Oz soap my mother liked to watch years back is called. Hardly a credible character in what appears to pose as a psychological thriller/drama (which it isn't on any of its purported levels). And what are Geoffrey Rush and Barbara Hershey doing down there? Was the movie shot on some kind of an Actor Sabbatical Trip Down Under? That's the trouble with movies that aspire to be all moody, interesting and ambitious: too many famous faces (not necessarily fitting the script) are injected into it, and the final question is "Why didn't they get Pacino and De Niro as well, in a package deal?". It is an unbelievable mix of characters in an unbelievable, and in the end very shallow, story, which made me so tired that I actually had trouble sleeping the same night, and produced a throbbing headache the next day.

This would have to be, without doubt, one of the most boring films I have ever had to endure. An utterly depressing and bleak portrayal of a bunch of navel gazing neurotics. If this monumental waste of celluloid is meant to be 'saying something' most normal, well balanced people simply wouldn't get the message. What a bunch of twisted, down trodden losers all the characters are in this drag of a film. It starts off slowly and quickly grinds to a complete halt long before the closing credits start to roll. Next time you run out of sleeping pills stick this DVD in our player and you'll nod off within minutes. Offers about as much entertainment value as clearing a blocked drain pipe.

LANTANA is a boring film by any standards. This is a movie which presents itself with a self consciousness that is identifiable from the first frame. The unfolding characterizations are one dimensional - something which seems to bother none of the actors except Geoffrey Rush who seems to be wondering why he agreed to do this movie. Add to these elements, the fact that it's horribly shot (it seems as if the static set-up shots were done with a hand held camera)and that the music score is the kind of noodling fare that is usually associated with bad TV movies. Stand up for your intelligence and good taste - refuse to pay for this movie.

"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.

This movie is so bad that the movie channel I watched it on had to run a half hour of interviews after it with cast and director explaining it. But I was too disgusted to bother watching. Any movie that is too obscure to communicate its own a point is, well, pointless. I have read comments raving about the 'character development'. Sorry, I don't see it. They are the same messed up losers at the end as at the beginning.The only development is that some get unhappier. I figured out that the 'message' must be 'what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive'- learned that in preschool. But even the honest characters get treated badly, so maybe that isn't the message. " Life is hard and screws people up" isn't a message either. The twaddle in the documentary about 'social commentary on relationships and how people treat each other' doesn't save the fact there is no lesson. It is trite that a morality play must have a moral, and this did not. Perhaps it is an absurdist treatise. Give me " Waiting For Godot" or " Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" any day. The wit in those gives them life. " Lantana" reeks of death, or maybe it just smells like excrement. There is some fine acting and interesting vignettes here in search of a movie.Perhaps a more experienced director might have realized that he needed to find it. Where is David Mamet when you need him?

The movie surprised me not in that it was good, which it was but I was expecting that, but the dynamics of all the characters. The intertwining plot was played out beautifully on screen and all the characters were portrayed brilliantly by all the actors. I didn't realize for the longest time that Anthony LaPahglia was NOT American and in fact an Aussie. Go him! Love Geoffrey Rush anyway and he did a great job as the mysterious and suspected husband. The relationships portrayed in the film come across as so real and true that it's sometimes difficult to remember that none of the people are ACTUALLY married. All in all, great film, great ensemble cast, great writing, directing, etc. View and be happy.

As this is my first ever comment on any film and having been warned that I should tell you the reader that I will be writing a spoiler if I comment on the plot without warning you in advance and forever be banned from commenting on other films by the IMDB, I will do so now. I will be commenting on part of the plot and should you not wish to know about the plot, read no further. In my humble opinion this film, "Lantana", misused the talents of some very fine actors and actresses by impaling them with a thinly disguised soap opera that had characters as thin as tissue paper. Without knowing some of the culture of Australia, such as the importance of having a mate, which is an undeveloped theme in the movie and leaves part of the movie hanging in midair, "Lantana" does not appeal to a broad audience. Here's the plot (spoiler) bit. One character throws a woman's shoe in a tangle of bush after a night out with his mates; his wife works two jobs to keep them. He looks after the children, except when he's out with his mates. Sorting out the who, how, why and what of the shoe in the tangle of bush is central to sorting out one of the tangles of a "mystery." And there are some very thin (in my opinion) sub-plots in a failed attempt to flesh out the characters which actually seems to confuse things without adding anything to the movie as a whole. Had we had several previous episodes, as in a television series, in which to get to know the characters, they would have been more developed, believable, and knowable. (There were some potentially very interesting characters in "Lantana".) Their lives and their actions may have made more sense to us with the whole of the film hanging together. Where I live we get films from all over the world and I have seen a number of "Australian" Australian films, so I know they can and do make good films. So do other countries. After I have seen a movie, I usually have feelings about the movie: happiness, sadness, "Why do we we exist?", "What a superb film.", "OK, but...", "So bad, it could be good.", or "Wow!"; but seldom do I have the feeling of wondering why they even bothered. My purpose in writing this is simply to state how deeply disappointed I was about "Lantana".