Review of Strangerland (2015) by Sandra A — 23 Apr 2016

A friend of mine had a sister go missing in the 1980's, in central British Columbia, Canada. I remember being quite young, but it made the local news, and we put posters up on telephone poles. She returned a few days later, after staying with an older boyfriend, and she claimed she was upset at her parents so she ran away. I remember it really taking a toll on my friend's family, and it tore them apart. I can only look back on it through my childhood memories, but as an adult I began to understand their frustration with her and the danger that she posed to herself.

Strangerland introduces us to one such family, living somewhere in the Australian Outback. Joseph Fiennes and Nicole Kidman join together in this film about an extremely fractured family struggling through one of the most traumatic events a family can go through. The movie has a somewhat slow pace, and lacks a sense of dramatic urgency one would expect in a situation like this, however it does an excellent job of showing how this family goes through different stages of grief. I found most of the drama perhaps too focused on their dysfunctional little family and characters were a bit to one dimensional at times. There are of course some relatively boring moments in this film, but I certainly liked the story. The one thing that was really out of place here was a strange sexual undertone from Nicole Kidman's character, which in my opinion was rather detracting from the overall plot. Nymphomania didn't really seem like an idea that would cause all of this to happen.

Perhaps the director was too focused on this sexual theme, that at times it really took away from the terror a situation like this instills on a family. I think any family who has to go through this situation must have different horror stories that they must go through themselves. It's a sad and sickening thing to have to ever happen, and the grief must be unbearable at times, and as time goes on, many families never truly get the closure they need as the days become months and months become years.

A similar theme to the movie Prisoners (2013), but a much slower and perhaps boring story for some, yet it does make you think about how families must cope in situations when a child goes missing. It is a sad and ambiguous story lacking closure.

2/5.