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102 reviews in total

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36 out of 43 people found the following review useful:
The cadaver that divided a town, 20 January 2007
Author: SteveThomp from Victoria, Australia

There is much of the troubling darkness of Ray Lawrence's earlier work, movies like Bliss and Lantana, present in Jindabyne, an Australian rendition of Raymond Carver's short story 'So much water so close to home'. From the first scenes - a sexually-motivated killing, implied rather than shown - Jindabyne holds your attention despite its somewhat slow pace and characters that can range from frustrating to infuriating. Its themes of resident evil, moral ambiguity and the divulgent fragility of relationships make it a difficult film to watch, despite its thought-provoking aspects.

Jindabyne revolves around four men who embark on a weekend fishing-trip, more of an annual ritual where they separate themselves from their wives and lives, hiking deep into the mountains. Shortly after arriving Stewart (Byrne) finds the body of an Aboriginal girl, stripped naked and floating in the river. The four make a telling decision: rather than hike back to report their find they keep fishing; the girl's body is left in the river where the cold water will slow decomposition; they tether it to a tree to prevent it floating downstream and into rapids. That the four think little about the moral implications of their conscious choice is reflected in subsequent scenes where they fish happily, not discussing their find or speculating about what happened to the girl. On returning, the callousness of their delay in reporting their find divides their families and their communities. Most of the focus is on Stewart's relationship with his wife Claire as the incident opens up existing fractures in their relationship. In fact the whole affair makes you wonder if any of the characters involved was ever truly happy; they certainly wonder it themselves.

The nature of the story is intensely psychological, which necessitates both good writing and acting to carry off. Pleasingly, Jindabyne has plenty of both. Beatrix Christian had Carver's story to draw upon but it would have been incredibly difficult to give this an Australian context, with all its understatement and scorn for overt displays of emotion (perhaps why they imported Linney). The addition of her and Byrne, two skilled international character actors, certainly added quality and some depth; they were supported by an ensemble cast that mixed Australian veterans (John Howard, 'Bud' Tingwell, Chris Haywood) with lesser-known but talented actors with an appreciation of the material they had been gifted.

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41 out of 55 people found the following review useful:
Guilt in a Glorious setting, 29 July 2006

Author: Philby-3 from Sydney, Australia

This is an intriguing, evocative and multilayered film superbly acted and wonderfully filmed (mostly in single takes, it seems). It is also rather slow and meandering, and problematic. The basic plot could be set almost anywhere – failure of personal relationships in the context of a failure of civic duty, but Ray Lawrence has chosen to adapt Raymond Carver's short story of the fishermen who took their time over reporting finding a woman's body to a highly specific place, Jindabyne, NSW, and to include the vexed question of black/white relationships in Australia.

As is pointed out in one of those awful cheery 1960s documentary being shown to the kids in the local primary school, the present day Jindabyne is a "second chance" sort of place, the old town having disappeared under the waters of Lake Jindabyne during the creation of the Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme, though at very low water levels the old church steeple is said to poke out of the water. Unfortunately, as we are shown in the opening sequence there is still evil in the new town in the shape of the local electrician (Chris Heywood, very nasty), who likes to hunt and kill young women. It is his victim's body the four fishing buddies, Stewart, Carl, Rocco and Billy, find in the stream, tie to a log, fish for a day, and then the next morning decide to raise the alarm.

When it becomes public that the four delayed reporting their find to go fishing (why didn't they lie about when they found the body?) there is a predictable uproar. The dead woman was aboriginal and the local aboriginals are particularly upset since they see this as symptomatic of whitey attitudes). Rocco's aboriginal girlfriend is not impressed. But the greatest emotional impact falls on Stewart (an Irishman) and his American wife Claire whose relationship is already rocky.

At one point I thought Claire was going to crack the case, but instead we get a literally hazy scene where some kind of reconciliation between black and white is attempted. After seeing the superb "Ten Canoes" recently I found the whole aboriginal storyline contrived. What I did think was very powerful and affecting was the portrayal of a damaged marriage. Gabriel Byrne does not put a foot wrong as Stewart, an ordinary bloke resigned to what little emotional comfort he can get from his family, and Laura Linney gives great depth to her role as his wife Claire, a woman for whom motherhood is a daunting task.

The rest of the cast are fine. Debra-Lee Furness as Carl's wife Jude makes a dislikeable character understandable, John Howard as Carl puts in a solid performance and there are two good performances from child actors Eva Lazzaro as Jude's disturbed granddaughter, and Sean Rees-Wemyss as Stewart and Claire's son Tom.

Ray Lawrence clearly did not set out to create a crime story but he certainly shows that crime can have some unexpected collateral damage. He also has contributed to the "Cinema of Unease", a phrase Sam Neill once used to describe New Zealand cinema, by setting a story about personal and public guilt in such a glorious setting.

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34 out of 43 people found the following review useful:
Promising story but ultimately unsatisfying, 28 July 2006

Author: AtomicAce from Sydney, Australia

There are similarities between Ray Lawrence's "Jindabyne" and his last movie "Lantana" – a dead body and its repercussions for already dysfunctional lives. But whereas "Lantana" offered some hope and resolution, "Jindabyne" leaves everything unresolved in a bleak way that will leave most viewers unsatisfied, perhaps even cheated.

The storyline - the aftermath of a fisherman's discovery of a corpse floating in a remote river - is based on a short story by Raymond Carver. It became an element in Robert Altman's classic 1993 ensemble "Short Cuts". Lawrence uses this theme for an exploration and exposition of relationships within a small Australian community under stress. The movie poses some moral questions "Would you let the discovery of a dead body ruin your good weekend?" and more poignantly for Australians "Would it make any difference if the dead person was an aboriginal?" The acting, especially by Gabriel Byrne and Laura Linney, is commendable. And there are elements of mysticism reinforced by haunting music, not unlike "Picnic at Hanging Rock".

If all this sounds like the basis for a great movie - be prepared for a let down, the pace is very slow and the murder is shown near the beginning, thereby eliminating the element of mystery. And so we are left with these desolate lives and a blank finale.

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24 out of 29 people found the following review useful:
so many unanswered questions?, 30 October 2006

Author: rva57380 from Adelaide.Australia

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Maybe I missed the message entirely, but I was disappointed. OK, the film relies heavily on mood and emotion rather than action, as many Aussie films seem to do. I can see that it can be taken as an allegory for the white man's invasion of the aboriginal's world - the rape and murder of black by white is followed by callous disregard by white men who come after - but is this really the message? Stewart's reaction when he finds the body is hardly uncaring, it's more like hysterical. And did the killer deliberately choose the aboriginal girl for his victim? The way he lay in wait behind the rocks makes it look random. What is the significance of Caylin-Calandria's absurd name? Why does she kill the guinea-pig? Is this supposed to show her as 'evil'? after all, she appears to have evil intent when Tom almost drowns. Is there any significance in the guinea-pig being black? There are a number of scenes that -to me, at least - add nothing to the movie, and only confuse the story. Why is the killer shown uncovering the victim's car in his shed, and pulling off the P plate? The car being there obviously puts him at risk of being caught, but nothing comes of it. Why does the killer try to force Claire off the road in the same way he did to his victim - reminiscent of the Peter Falconio killer - is this meant to throw suspicion on him in Claire's mind? Nothing comes of it. When Claire shows up at the aboriginal's spirit-smoking ceremony, some mourners resent her intrusion and threaten her - yet the killer is there too, watching from the sidelines, but no-one questions or objects to his presence.

One thing that did amuse me is the apparent nod the director gives to the movie 'Duel' in the way the FJ45 Landcruiser appears to menace its 'victims' - the close-up view in the mirror, the revving overtaking maneuver, the heavy diesel idling when it's lying in wait, all look familiar. And, like the truck in Duel, it stops and waits up ahead after it has given Claire a scare. Sure, we see the driver in this one, unlike Duel, but I thought there was a parallel.

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54 out of 89 people found the following review useful:
Brilliant movie, 27 May 2006

Author: Nickemon

I recently saw Jindabyne in Cannes and it is a brilliant movie. Thanks to a wonderful cast and Ray Lawrence the script comes alive on the screen.

Four fishing buddies find a dead girl in the river. They don't report their find until a few days later. This causes anger and disappointment from their families and the rest of the town; reactions they don't seem capable of understanding.

Byrne and Linney, especially, turn every line and every second into an intense moment. They're human beings, and it shows. You understand why their characters act like they do, but you don't always accept it.

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17 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
A Murder and Its Implications on a Town and Families, 3 October 2007

Author: gradyharp from United States

JINDABYNE is a disturbing, somber little film from Australia - a film with profound observations about ethics, racism, the fragility of marriage, the vulnerability of children's minds, and the desperate need for respect for beliefs and peoples outside the mainstream. Beatrix Christian adapted the screenplay from one of Raymond Carver's brilliant short stories, 'So Much Water So Close to Home': it has been said that Carver had 'the ability to render graceful prose from dreary, commonplace, scrapping-the-bottom human misery' and this story embodies all of those traits. As directed by Ray Lawrence with a cast of excellent actors, JINDABYNE will likely become a classic movie - if enough people will take the time and commitment to see it.

In a small town called Jindabyne in Australia a group of four men depart their families for a fishing trip: Stewart Kane (Gabriel Byrne), Carl (John Howard), Rocco (Stelios Yiakmis) and Billy (Simon Stone). While fly fishing in the back country, Stewart discovers the nude, murdered body of a dead Aboriginal girl Susan (Tatea Reilly) floating in the water, calls his buddies to witness the ugly act, and together they decide to wait until their fishing trip is over before reporting it.

When the men return home, concerned and embarrassed about their actions as they report to the police, the town is outraged at their thoughtless behavior. Yet more outraged are the wives of the men - Carl's wife Jude (Deborra-Lee Furness), Rocco's mate Carmel (Leah Purcell), Billy's 'wife' Elissa (Alice Garner) and, most of all, Stewart's wife Claire (Laura Linney) - a woman with a history of mental instability for whom her husband's insensitivity becomes intolerable. Claire sets out to 'right' things with the Aboriginal tribe who are devastated at the murder and the disregard for another human being's life that the fishermen have demonstrated. The town and the families (including children) are fractured by the deed - and the strange aspect is that no one appears concerned to discover the murderer, the greater 'crime' has been against human decency. In a powerfully moving final memorial for the dead girl every one is forced to face the dirty aspects of the recent events and come to a degree of understanding and acceptance.

Filmed in the beauty of the Australian countryside with camera technique that feels intimate and almost spying in nature, the story unfolds so naturally that the audience is made to feel a part of the dilemma at hand. The acting is first rate: Laura Linney once again proves she is one of our finest actresses, and Gabriel Byrne makes his odd character wholly believable. The supporting cast (especially the women) is outstanding. This is a sleeper of a film that deserves a wide audience, an audience ready to commit to thinking and reacting to an act and subsequent public response that, while difficult to swallow, is essential information if we are to exist in the society we have created. Highly recommended. Grady Harp

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17 out of 23 people found the following review useful:
Terrible, 9 December 2006

Author: jimmy-161 from Sydney

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This film is terrible. I was really looking forward to it, as I thought "Lantana" was great.

The following review may contain *spoilers*

*****

First, the good things: it looks great, some of the performances are OK. The bad things are everything else about it.

The story, as you possibly know, is about some blokes who go fishing and discover a body, with the twist that they find it on Friday but continue fishing and finally report it on Sunday when they get back into mobile (cell phone) range. However the film takes it's time (boy does it take its time) getting to this central event.

Of the ensemble of characters (about a dozen), not one seems to like another one (which is, I suppose, consistent, because they are all unlikable). I was extremely frustrated by the failure to adequately explain how the characters are related, and it was not until near the end of the movie that I could vaguely construct the family tree.

It's hard to think of a film us unrelentingly grim, which is a failure in the structure of the story, as the character's lives seem just as bad before the fishing trip as after. Once you've set the bar so high, it's hard to up-it short of everyone committing suicide.

There are silly lapses in logic. The killer dumps the body in the lake, and then it somehow drifts miles upstream into the mountains. The fishermen walk out Sunday morning, but for some reason Byrne gets home late at night after his wife has gone to bed. Then first thing the next morning the cops bang on the door to get him to come down to the station. Um, they haven't heard of the telephone? Down at the station, the media know the whole story, less than 24 hours after they reported the body?

Totally missing from the story is the debate the blokes surely had after they find the body. This is a mystery - everyone asks them "how could you do that?" and the audience is asking the same question. (The debate about what to do with the body is the key scene in "Deliverance"). I know exactly what I'd do in their situation. Someone needs to walk out to the car, drive to mobile range, call the cops, wait, and them guide them back to the location. If the others wait at camp and fish, who cares?

A lot of all this just seems false. The only thing that rung true was that, as the girl was black, the local aboriginals seized on the fishermen's actions as racist - "wouldn't have done it if it was a white girl."

Throughout there is a curious indifference to who might have killed the girl (I think the subject is mentioned once), and there is no mystery, as the audience sees the killer in the opening scene.

So I'm sitting there simultaneously bored and confused, when there's a twist - not in the plot, but the theme. Suddenly it becomes about the quiet dignity of the bereaved aboriginals leading to a ludicrous ending with some incoherent stuff about black-white reconciliation. Huh?

This is Australian film "at its finest", according to The Age.

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29 out of 47 people found the following review useful:
REALLY not worth it... PC propaganda!, 21 September 2006

Author: ozziefilmbuff from Australia

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This isn't art, it's inner-urban, politically-correct propaganda! Jindabyne's political intolerance is beyond unforgivable... it doesn't see people as individuals, but rather, as members of categories.

This is the most patronisingly offensive Australian movie I can recall ever (and it's up against some pretty stiff competition!). A message movie, every tired theme beloved of the trendy left is there: Aborigines are victims; white men are violent or alcoholics; white women aren't that bad -particularly if they are lesbians - but they're most likely of a depressive nature.

Four men who go away fishing, find the body of a murdered woman (Aboriginal, naturally) and leave her in the river for several days while they catch trout. It's a strange decision taken with almost no discussion, as if the men are animals. The one man who briefly demurs is the goodie... we know this because he's living with a bisexual woman - he likes to hold his baby a lot - and eventually moves to a more fashionable costal location (away from all these beastly bush-dwellers).

This is a film made by those trendy urbanites who live in fear of the Australian landscape and those evil rednecks who reside within. It's ignorance of country life is almost as shocking as its contempt. The film is shot through with long-distance views of the bush backed by foreboding, mysterious music. It's made very clear by the end that Aboriginal people are the only ones at home in this landscape. It concludes with an excruciatingly implausible scene of black-white reconciliation.

In Jindabyne, country life is reduced to little more than a backdrop for a story that by implication proclaims the superiority of the values of enlightened leftist urban dwellers over those of other Australians.

This film was not made by people with real jobs but funded by the Government's Film Finance Corporation. It's a product of the artsy set, that soulless void populated by the beautiful people for whom lavish government funding sustains these patronisingly offensive projects (which are as detached from real life as possible), as opposed to actually making popular films people want to see. It doesn't matter if the film is a stinker, they still get paid.

Spare yourself from wasting time, avoid it like the plague. More jaded social commentary than actual entertainment, this film deserves to pan!

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13 out of 18 people found the following review useful:
"Too lazy to walk up to the road?", 28 April 2007

Author: screenwriter-14 from United States

A fishing trip gone bad is one way of looking at JINDABYNE, but then you would miss the whole mystery of this film and how it examines the lives of others in a small Australian town, which on the surface may seem perfect. But in JINDABYNE you soon learn that beneath the ripples of the lake lie other factors which swirl to the surface and create a fascinating film and story. The wind whipping through the trees and the power lines that dot the hills make for a perfect background for this film.

Laura Linney, once and again, and Gabriel Byrne are two superb actors that make JINDABYNE come alive with strong performances, as well as from a seasoned cast. JINDABYNE offers us a film of human tragedy, as seen from both sides of the racial coin, and is a very timely film with all the evils that go on within today's global stage. In Ms. Linney, her face always mirrors a million emotions, and Mr. Byrne is the perfect foil for a marriage with issues. The final scenes are powerful and leave you with a question of, "what now might Jindabyne be in the near future?" However, with that said, I felt the film could have been edited a bit more tightly, and not taken so long with the development of characters and the build up to the final conclusion. But in watching the face of Laura Linney and her inner expressions, along with the writing, one can forgive the length of the film.

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23 out of 38 people found the following review useful:
Jindabyne is a brilliant and authentic Australian film., 22 July 2006

Author: spacemoose-2 from Australia

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Jindabyne is a brilliant Australian film.

At a simple level Jindabyne is the story of four men who make a bad moral choice, to delay the reporting of a deceased woman while they continue their fishing trip. The story follows the repercussions as their choices become known in the small country town.

Jindabyne is good on this level, but it's real strength is in the complexity of the story. It is not only this study on personal decisions, but on White Australia's relationship with the land and with it's indigenous inhabitants.

The men are unable to admit the abhorrence of their actions, and in this respect they can easily be recognised as a metaphor for the colonising forces that invaded Australia. They also reflect contemporary Australia's inability to reconcil it's past with it's future.

The wives, and in particular the lead wife, is that part of Australia which is frantically trying to seek amends with the actions of white Australia. Though she is continually rebuffed by the family of the Aboriginal girl. They seem to suspect that she is apologising not to them, but for herself, for her husband... attempting to gain some kind of moral absolution with apology. This is the problem Australia faces now with it's cultural battles for our nations history... what if white Australia does make an apology for Aboriginal genocide... what if the apology is accepted? Will life just go on? Will the white people believe this apology is all that is required of them? The other theme in the film is the anxiety of the Australian bush. The beautiful countryside is at once shown as peaceful, but more often as threatening. This recalls much of Australian/settlers psyche in relation to this unknown environment.... see movies such as Picnic at Hanging Rock, or The Proposition.

Please ignore the previous comment, the Aboriginal people do not ruin the white peoples lives at all. And this comment shows the expectations that an apology ought to be accepted, which then makes the apology conditional on acceptance - If you won't accept the apology, then I'm not going to apologise.

But this is not a movie about Aboriginal people so much as it is about settler-anxiety.

As a film it beautiful creates the tension and anxiety (that word again) one feels in the isolated Australian bush. wonderful Music, sound and cinematography create an air of the surreal and a lurking hidden danger.

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