Lantana

L’ennui done Aussie style in this much admired mid-life relationship thriller, which sees four marriages in varying degrees of disarray, drawn together after a woman suddenly disappears.

Anthony LaPaglia is a big, gruff Antipodean cop (prone to describing all men who cry as ‘weak pricks’) whose eyes start wandering as his marriage flounders and his wife takes refuge in salsa lessons. Elsewhere, Barbara Hershey is a prominent psychologist whose marriage to Geoffrey Rush has been ravaged by grief for the couple’s murdered daughter. The already grim situation is worsened by Hershey’s suspicion that a gay client is actually her husband’s clandestine lover.

Add to the mix an apparently happy family – and their newly single female neighbour longing for the security of domesticity – and before you can cry ‘Serendipity’ the characters are wandering in and out of each other’s lives.

With its sedate atmosphere and thoughtful tempo, Lantana is markedly different from the quick pace and quirkiness that characterises the average Aussie flick. OK, the movie is a bit too langorous about establishing characters and themes, and the pile-up of coincidences wears thin on occasion, but the ultimately compelling depiction of entangled relationships and human frailty make it easy to see why the film has seduced critics Down Under, earning it seven Australian Oscars.

Add to this some impressive and unshowy acting from all involved, and you have a multi-layered affair which may lack the sordid underbelly of a Ruth Rendell tale, but is suitably soulful about its marital material.

As a result, Lantana may not be up there with Short Cuts or Magnolia as choral movies go, but it’s certainly worthwhile nonetheless.