Review of Jindabyne (2006) by Mike M — 14 May 2010

There is much to be said for this kind of patient, adult filmmaking, a form that teases out its various tensions and connections; for all the killer (a dodgy electrician, natch) rants and raves about pylons and power stations, Lawrence's film seeks to absorb rather than electrify us - that he'll happily leave to other Transformers.

.. Byrne and Linney are simply very convincing as a lived-in pair fraying at a higher rate than usual, and Lawrence is particularly good (and notably bold) in demonstrating the effects of their indifference upon the tale's children.

If I have one reservation about "Jindabyne", it's that it retains this whiff of the laboratory from start to finish, as though this isolated town were no more than a director's bell jar or ant colony.

Shortly before the finale - which demonstrates almost as much sentimentality around the film's Aboriginal characters as certain white American filmmakers do around their black characters - Linney is told "this isn't about you".

"It's about all of us," she responds, "I mean, who are we?" Clumsy in places, then - its lapses and deliberation perhaps attributable to having to translate from short cut to long form, one hemisphere to another (where "Lantana" developed organically, like the brushweed it was named for) - but it does roll up its sleeves and keep poking at several of the big themes of our times: our responsibility to ourselves and each other, and the terrible things that can happen whenever we're allowed off the hook.