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Lantana [2002]


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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review

Lantana teased its subtle way into the minds of cinemagoers in 2002 with a welcome reminder that nothing succeeds like a well-written, hypnotically acted drama that reflects the humanity, complexity and frailty of its audiences right back at them. Lantana is about betrayal, grief beyond recovery and the tenuous threads by which the most superficially ordinary relationships founder or survive. At the same time, it is quietly and profoundly life-affirming. It is, as producer Jan Chapman suggests during the director's commentary, "a film you have to pay attention to". But it rewards that attention.

Andrew Bovell's economic, absorbing script is based on his original stage play Speaking in Tongues. A series of coincidences creates a network of links between characters with unsettling and often shattering consequences. Like another Australian classic, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Lantana explores a constantly shifting line between deceit and honesty. It is a psychological mystery in which the land itself claims a life that has nowhere else to go. Director Ray Lawrence draws minutely observed performances from his actors, particularly Anthony LaPaglia as Leon, the Sydney detective in the throes of mid-life crisis, Kerry Armstrong as his wife Sonia and Barbara Hershey as Valerie, the psychologist whose panic finally releases her from an untenable situation. Lantana is engrossing from beginning to end.

On the DVD: Lantana is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, bringing the extraordinary, realistic lighting of the original cinematography to life on the small screen. Paul Kelly's brooding score and the leitmotif of the Salsa songs make huge contributions to an intimate and often raw viewing experience. Apart from the fascinating director's commentary which tellingly reveals that a major Hollywood studio loved the concept but declined the project because the marketing department couldn't work out how to sell it, extras include the requisite making-of documentary, trailers and biographies. --Piers Ford


A film for grown-ups
Review date: 2008-08-14 Rating: 10 out of 10

This is an excellent film that explores the emotional turmoil of four relationships. The film avoids just wallowing in these emotions by weaving the couples together by the investigation of a suspicious death.
It's a film that will appeal more to those who have had some experience of life and can empathize with the feelings and experiences of the characters.

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Reviews


Thorns in the Garden
Review date: 2008-07-13 Rating: 10 out of 10

When I first saw this taut moody thriller, I found it absorbing, but I simply could not identify with the characters (which are, nevertheless, portrayed by an excellent ensemble cast). Why, I thought, doesn't an otherwise intelligent woman--a psychiatrist yet--who has wrecked her car, and has walked several kilometers down a dark lonely road to a pay-phone, call 999 (or its Australian equivalent)? And I found Anthony Lapaglia simply unappealing. That was then.

I have since watched the film several more times. As for my first complaint, I have come to understand the onslaught of hysteria in the physician who is in need of healing herself. As for Anthony Lapaglia, I have gotten used to him (The traditional handsome Hollywood hero he isn't!) and have come to admire him in the television show, "Without A Trace." Therefore I have cast aside my initial prejudice and now fully appreciate what an accomplished actor he is in "Lantana." Lapaglia is an excellent foil for Geoffrey Rush, who turns in a moving performance as the twice-bereaved Professor of Law.

The director presents a series of relationships that are as thorny and thick as the lantana hedges--which seem alive with shrilling cicadas--that run riot along the Sidney roadsides. He also subtly misdirects the attention of the audience, which may think it has cleverly intuited the solution to the mystery, but gradually realizes that it has been skillfully guided through the tangled Lantana maze and sent down the wrong garden path altogether.


Satisfying and somber
Review date: 2007-11-04 Rating: 8 out of 10

I'm not sure how much play this Australian movie received in the U.S. and Britain, but whatever it was it deserved more. In a great opening shot, it starts with the implication that there has been a murder, but it moves steadily into a study of people, basically four couples, and how they come together in ways that are deeply emotional and questioning. Anthony LaPaglia plays Leon Zat, a Sydney detective who is trying to find out who the body is and what happened. He's married, burned out, unhappy, with a lot of stuff ready to explode. He's having a joyless affair with a woman, but he loves his wife and kids. His wife sees the marriage falling apart and doesn't know what to do about it. She's been seeing a psychiatrist, but this woman has problems of her own...a daughter who was murdered and a husband who has become frozen emotionally.

I know, it sounds like some weekday soap. Believe me, it isn't. The actors are uniformily superb. Besides LaPaglia, there's Geoffrey Rush, Barbara Hersey, and a number of Australian actors who should be better known in the U.S and Britain. If you only know LaPaglia from cop and gangster roles, TV crime shows and as the thick-headed hood/nephew in The Client, you're in for a revelation. As good as LaPaglia is, Rush matches him in a performance that is subtle, ambiguous and sad.

It's a somber movie. I recommend it highly. The DVD transfer is very good

Engrossing, superbly acted but slow adult drama
Review date: 2004-06-12 Rating: 8 out of 10

Silly me. Watching this film I thought Lantana was some sort of exotic dance but apparently it's a thorny shrub and this film opens with a women's unidentified body lying in amongst this shrub. The shrub is also a metaphor for the entangled lives on display. As the plot unfolds we gradually learn her identity through the intertwining lives of several people, most of them couples undergoing various levels of relationship strife.
Adapted from a stage play "Speaking in Tongues" it occasionally reveals its source through a series of low key scenes that rely on talking heads but is no less engrossing for that. It's almost soap opera mixed with the labyrinthine narrative of "Pulp Fiction" or "Go".
These are ordinary lives and at times what is happening can seem a little banal but every scene leads us inexorably on to revealing the identity of the unfortunate murder victim and the performances are so good that you should be gripped anyway. Lapaglia as the hangdog cop Leon is superb. Rush gives an understated performance as the husband of Valerie, the ever excellent Barbara Hershey. However the real star is Kerry Armstrong as Valerie, Leons wife in who's face constantly and believably radiates all the frustrations, betrayals and tiny hurts everyday life can bring.
The movies somnolent pace can become a tad wearisome at times but it's worth paying close attention as that's where the real pleasure in watching this film is to be derived and it rewards that attention handsomely.

Clever and beautifully acted
Review date: 2004-06-06 Rating: 10 out of 10

This is one of those films that you won't forget - it is excellently done: good acting, good script, suspenseful, and it actually makes you think. A series of characters are presented and brought together - partly by chance and partly by a tragedy. The method of telling the story leaves you in suspense until the very end and cleverly leads you down a path that winds and winds but does make sense....A definite must

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Manu Bennett
Geoffrey Rush
Kerry Armstrong
Rachael Blake
Anthony LaPaglia

Creators:
Anthony LaPaglia (Primary Contributor)
Geoffrey Rush (Primary Contributor)
Mandy Walker (Cinematographer)
Karl Sodersten (Editor)
Catherine Jarman (Producer)
Jan Chapman (Producer)
Mikael Borglund (Producer)
Rainer Mockert (Producer)
Andrew Bovell (Writer)

Director(s):

Recording label: Vision Video Ltd.
Manufacturer: Vision Video Ltd.
EAN: 3259190249424
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2003-03-17
Number of discs: 1
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 115 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2001
Language: English (Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired)
Language: English (Original Language)

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