Despite good acting and rich exploration of interrelated dysfunctional family situations -- the same kind of thing Australian director Ray Lawrence's 'Lantana' was notable for, so he's doing what he wants to do -- 'Jindabyne' doesn't work, and it leaves one feeling unsatisfied.
Lawrence has so much going on in this film, it's as if Alejandro González Iñárritu's 'Babel' had been concentrated into one little Australian town. And it's all interesting. It begins with the four men on an ill-fated fishing trip in the Raymond Carver story "So Much Water So Close to Home," on which this film is based. Making their camp up in the woods one of the men finds a dead woman floating in the river. It's a long way from the car, a very long way from home. The weather's lovely, the fish are big, and they're easy to catch, and these things lead the men to make a strategic and logistical and moral error. There's been a murder. It needs to be reported right away. You don't put a serious crime scene on hold till you finish your recreational activities. But that's what they choose to do. They tie the body to keep it from floating away, and do their fishing before they call the cops.
In the Carver story, this miscalculation fundamentally does only one important thing: it aggravates an already strained relationship in the case of the main couple, the story being told from the viewpoint of the wife. 'Jindabyne' isn't any different. Claire (Laura Linney), the wife, is still the main character. The same thing happens to the relationship. Only everything else is ratcheted up too, with all sorts of additional complications and damaged relationships added. The men's carelessness is the big headline in the local paper. That's in the short story too, only this time there's not just the name of Stewart (Gabriel Byrne) but a photograph (bigger than small town photos normally get to be) of the youngest, most uncomplicated member of the party, Billy (Simon Stone), holding up a fish with a goofy smile under a big banner headline: "MEN FISH OVER DEAD BODY." Unlike Stewart, who knew they had to lie and get their lies to mesh, Billy's been candid. He's also disadvantaged by being a carefree guy with a happy marriage and a little kid. The movie banishes him before it's over, leaving only the dour and troubled majority. Some of the others come to blows, and their marriages start to strain too. And in and out of the whole thing is woven some pretty portentous music.
Not only has the American story been transplanted to the vast spaces of Australia; it's been given a racial dimension. The dead woman is of aboriginal origin, and her people look on the men's delay as a "white hate crime" and vandalize the culprits' houses and businesses. The killer's another new dimension, if a vague one. Carver's killer was anonymous and just got caught the next day: this one's a dangling thread. We see him trap the victim on the road and dump her body later. But how he does it and why we never learn; he's just a figure who keeps reappearing all the way through. Another new complication: the main couple isn't either white or aboriginal Australian: they're the Irish Byrne (in full brogue here) and the American Linney (in full bustling American mode), and their problems go back to the earliest time of their marriage. And Claire's troubles have been expanded to include a pregnancy, and personal conflicts not only with Stewart but with her Irish mother-in-law, one of the few uncomplicated characters. She wants to help; but she gets brutal treatment from both spouses for her trouble. Their little boy, Dean (Carver's name again) is a bona-fide character, and he has a little girlfriend who's a bad influence -- though she does sort of trick him into learning how to swim, one of this downbeat film's few positive events.
The Irish Stewart is a weak, dishonest, TV-watching beer-guzzler who screws like a robot, and Claire, who so characterizes him, is an emasculating busybody do-gooder. True to form -- or true to stereotype though this may seem, both are well-meaning people. But there's a culture clash between them, and Claire's American desire to work everything out clashes with the white Australians' way of quietly moving on.
There's no faulting any of the actors, who bring everything wonderfully to life, however negative or depressing their characters' situations or mindsets. The fault is with a screenplay that doesn't just make Carver's story -- already recreated effectively, and economically, as one segment of Robert Altman's 'Short Cuts' -- into something richer and more complex, but into something so complicated it becomes difficult to care about what happens because there is nothing to focus on. Despite an awkwardly "healing" aboriginal memorial service and spirit-expulsion that the fishing party men and their families attend (rather reluctantly except for Claire, who's been campaigning to raise money for it and insists they must go to) -- and despite all the crap hitting various fans -- nothing really does happen. Notably the Carver story, for all its tight-lipped ambiguity, allows for a simple final reconciliation: quick sex.
An aspect of the over-plotting of 'Jindabyne' is that despite characters who come alive, the central ones all appear to be just flailing hopelessly about. The film so takes its time getting down to business with the fishing trip that the discovery of the body loses effect (must we see each man catch his fish?), and it's not till half way through running time that the men return and are confronted with their error. Then things come to life -- for a while. But as the film begins to wander from subplot to subplot, that energy dissipates again. An honorable failure, perhaps, but nonetheless a pretty complete one, 'Jindabyne' may not be pure punishment, but it's lacking in real rewards.
Lawrence has so much going on in this film, it's as if Alejandro González Iñárritu's 'Babel' had been concentrated into one little Australian town. And it's all interesting. It begins with the four men on an ill-fated fishing trip in the Raymond Carver story "So Much Water So Close to Home," on which this film is based. Making their camp up in the woods one of the men finds a dead woman floating in the river. It's a long way from the car, a very long way from home. The weather's lovely, the fish are big, and they're easy to catch, and these things lead the men to make a strategic and logistical and moral error. There's been a murder. It needs to be reported right away. You don't put a serious crime scene on hold till you finish your recreational activities. But that's what they choose to do. They tie the body to keep it from floating away, and do their fishing before they call the cops.
In the Carver story, this miscalculation fundamentally does only one important thing: it aggravates an already strained relationship in the case of the main couple, the story being told from the viewpoint of the wife. 'Jindabyne' isn't any different. Claire (Laura Linney), the wife, is still the main character. The same thing happens to the relationship. Only everything else is ratcheted up too, with all sorts of additional complications and damaged relationships added. The men's carelessness is the big headline in the local paper. That's in the short story too, only this time there's not just the name of Stewart (Gabriel Byrne) but a photograph (bigger than small town photos normally get to be) of the youngest, most uncomplicated member of the party, Billy (Simon Stone), holding up a fish with a goofy smile under a big banner headline: "MEN FISH OVER DEAD BODY." Unlike Stewart, who knew they had to lie and get their lies to mesh, Billy's been candid. He's also disadvantaged by being a carefree guy with a happy marriage and a little kid. The movie banishes him before it's over, leaving only the dour and troubled majority. Some of the others come to blows, and their marriages start to strain too. And in and out of the whole thing is woven some pretty portentous music.
Not only has the American story been transplanted to the vast spaces of Australia; it's been given a racial dimension. The dead woman is of aboriginal origin, and her people look on the men's delay as a "white hate crime" and vandalize the culprits' houses and businesses. The killer's another new dimension, if a vague one. Carver's killer was anonymous and just got caught the next day: this one's a dangling thread. We see him trap the victim on the road and dump her body later. But how he does it and why we never learn; he's just a figure who keeps reappearing all the way through. Another new complication: the main couple isn't either white or aboriginal Australian: they're the Irish Byrne (in full brogue here) and the American Linney (in full bustling American mode), and their problems go back to the earliest time of their marriage. And Claire's troubles have been expanded to include a pregnancy, and personal conflicts not only with Stewart but with her Irish mother-in-law, one of the few uncomplicated characters. She wants to help; but she gets brutal treatment from both spouses for her trouble. Their little boy, Dean (Carver's name again) is a bona-fide character, and he has a little girlfriend who's a bad influence -- though she does sort of trick him into learning how to swim, one of this downbeat film's few positive events.
The Irish Stewart is a weak, dishonest, TV-watching beer-guzzler who screws like a robot, and Claire, who so characterizes him, is an emasculating busybody do-gooder. True to form -- or true to stereotype though this may seem, both are well-meaning people. But there's a culture clash between them, and Claire's American desire to work everything out clashes with the white Australians' way of quietly moving on.
There's no faulting any of the actors, who bring everything wonderfully to life, however negative or depressing their characters' situations or mindsets. The fault is with a screenplay that doesn't just make Carver's story -- already recreated effectively, and economically, as one segment of Robert Altman's 'Short Cuts' -- into something richer and more complex, but into something so complicated it becomes difficult to care about what happens because there is nothing to focus on. Despite an awkwardly "healing" aboriginal memorial service and spirit-expulsion that the fishing party men and their families attend (rather reluctantly except for Claire, who's been campaigning to raise money for it and insists they must go to) -- and despite all the crap hitting various fans -- nothing really does happen. Notably the Carver story, for all its tight-lipped ambiguity, allows for a simple final reconciliation: quick sex.
An aspect of the over-plotting of 'Jindabyne' is that despite characters who come alive, the central ones all appear to be just flailing hopelessly about. The film so takes its time getting down to business with the fishing trip that the discovery of the body loses effect (must we see each man catch his fish?), and it's not till half way through running time that the men return and are confronted with their error. Then things come to life -- for a while. But as the film begins to wander from subplot to subplot, that energy dissipates again. An honorable failure, perhaps, but nonetheless a pretty complete one, 'Jindabyne' may not be pure punishment, but it's lacking in real rewards.