Review of Jindabyne (2006) by Ned P — 20 Dec 2008

Filmed in and around the Australian town of the same name, Jindabyne hinges on the actions of four men, who on a fishing trip, discover the body of a young Aboriginal girl. The group do not report the find straight away, completing their break before telling the police, and when they return home they encounter hostility from the local community.

The man who found the body, Stewart Kane (Gabriel Byrne), also faces the anger and disappointment of his wife Claire (Laura Linney), who takes it upon herself to heal the wounds created by her husband and his friends.

The fundamental problem with Jindabyne is that it takes too long to get to the discovery of the body, the story's fulcrum. Everything should be geared towards getting to this event relatively quickly, but the film dithers, giving unimportant characters too much screen time and adding scenes that take too long to make a simple point.

Thankfully, the story becomes richer once the men return from their expedition. Stewart and Claire's relationship becomes increasingly prickly, and there's a strong sense that a workable divide between two sides of a community has disappeared.

It's a shame then, that the ending does not have the resounding power that would make the film worth sitting through again. Given the scope afforded by the central conceit, the finale feels rather simplistic and unmoving.

Praise should be given to Byrne and Linney, though, both reliably excellent at the centre of a dark, unsettling story.