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From the opening visual scene, I knew I was
going to like this film. The camera sweeps into a beautiful plant
with red bloom (a lantana) but then into the ugly thorny interior.
This is the perfect metaphor for the theme of this film with characters
who from the outside seem happy and normal, but on the inside have dark
and troubling secrets. The opening made me think of the similar
opening shot in David Lynch's (Blue Velvet).
The story
starts out with us meeting Sam (Lapaglia) who is a cop married to Sonja
(Armstrong). Sam is having an unemotional affair while Sonja is
visiting a psychiatrist (Hershey) to figure out why her marriage to Sam
has become stale. The psychiatrist disappears one night and her
husband (Rush) becomes a prime suspect, as well as possibly having an
affair with another man. The rest of the plot becomes a missing
person mystery but the film is much more than that, about all these
characters somehow become connected and how they end up interacting with
each other. The structure of the movie reminds me of (Magnolia)
where by all the characters are related to each other by events by the
end of the film.
The film
is powerfully acted by everyone. All the characters are real and
believable and end up exploring the themes of what constitutes
happiness, what is real love and trust, and why do spouses cheat on the
ones they love and feel nothing for their extramarital partners.
Additionally, the cinematography is amazing and evocative. There
are several mesmerizing visual scenes such as a car moving slowly down a
country road in pitch black darkness and you can just feel the
creepiness. The tone of the film is very somber which adds so much
to what these characters are feeling.
While this
film is hard to explain in a review, anyone who likes films about people
and their motivations and secrets will enjoy this film. I look for
this one to surely be on my top ten list for films in 2002.
(although this film came out in Australia in 2001).
-- Mike
( 4 out of 4 pops )
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