Rachael Blake Barbara Hershey LaPaglia & Armstrong
DVD
Lantana êêêê ( R )
Reviewed By George O. Singleton
Sometimes Love is not Enough
Leon: Anthony LaPaglia
John: Geoffrey Rush
Valerie: Barbara Hershey
Sonja: Kerry Armstrong
Jane: Rachael Blake
Nik: Vince Colosimo
Paula: Daniella Farinacci
Claudia (cop): Leah Purcell
Patrick: Peter Phelps
Pete: Glenn Robbins
Director: Ray Lawrence
Screenplay: Andrew Bovell
30 Second Bottom Line: Fractured and/or martial relationships under stress are brought into focus by the investigation of a missing doctor that wrote a book about her eleven year old daughter who was murdered two years earlier.
Story Line: Leon (Anthony LaPaglia) is a policeman with two teenage boys that is married to his sensuous housewife Sonja (Kerry Armstrong). He's having a mid life crisis as conveyed in a number of ways that sets up the events in the film such as his affair with Jane (Rachael Blake) who he met at a dance class he is taking with Sonja; another indication is his "going in hard" on arrests with his partner Claudia (Leah Purcell). Leon is a disaster waiting to happen. He has chest pains when he jogs or makes love to Jane. When Jane loses one of her earrings which turns up in Leon's car on the way home, it's just a matter of time before he has more than he can handle.
Sonja senses the distance between her and Leon and seeks counseling from Dr. Valerie Somers (Barbara Hershey). Valerie is in partial successful recovery herself because of the best selling book she penned called Eleanor, which is about the murder of her daughter two years ago. Her husband John (Geoffrey Rush) has become very distant and she fears that his infrequent sexual desire for her and opportunistic scheduling of working late indicates he is having an affair, possibly a homosexual one. A patient by the name of Patrick (Peter Phelps) is gay and is having an affair with a married man. As we are the fly on the wall of multiple and separate counseling sessions with Sonja and Patrick, Valerie picks up suspected parallels in her life that may make her more distraught than her patients. Think of the psychiatrist on the HBO show TheSoprano's and you get the general picture.
Jane lives next door to Paula and Nik (Daniella Farinacci and Vince Colosimo), a couple with three young kids who are trying to make it off of her working long shifts as a nurse and his unemployment while he is looking for a job. When Leon and Jane are getting it on, it's always at her house. Nik becomes a suspect in the disappearance of Valerie with Jane is the prime witness. When Leon is assigned as the investigating officer, everyone's secrets come out into the open. For some that is a good thing and for others not. This comes across as more complicated to read than to follow in the film.
While the characters may sound a little like they are over the top, they are anything but that. They are just like you and I, which shows you how things can change in our lives. Even a slow drip will eventually fill a bucket and at a given point, the overflow will have a lot more impact than the one drip that seemed like it would never fill that pale.
Tell Me More About It: Lantana reminds me somewhat of With A Friend Like Harry except that the improbable coincidences of a small group of people in a large city like Sydney, Australia are less likely to happen. The interrelationship between the characters is Altmanesque like Short Cuts and Magnolia. It's unlikely that all of these things might occur at the same time, but each one can certainly happen on their own.
Another big plus for this film is how foreshadowing is used. Pay attention to the person you see in the underbrush at the beginning of the film. We think we know what is going on with John, but do we? Is Sonja who and what she really says she is? Will his affair come out into the open, and if so, because of carelessness or because of his bad heart? These are fun things to look out for that keep you more on the edge of your seat than 99% of the thrillers that try to scare you with people sneaking up behind you.
While some critics will discount this film because of the ultra convenient interconnectivity among the characters, to the degree I agree with them, the film more than makes up for it with the strong script (ala David Mament like but somewhat more subtle), great acting and the emotional connection you come to feel for the ten characters listed above. Being introduced to, remembering and caring for so many characters in a two hour film is what let me know how powerful an impact it had on me. Over a period of time, just about everything and anything does happen in a life. When relationships survive these events and the people are not turned into zombies or mean spirited grinches, it's often because of one's belief in God and their strength of self examination along with the ability to renew oneself so they can be a better person from their experiences, be they good or bad.
Lantana is a beautiful shrub with lovely flowers supported by strong gnarly undergrowth. That proves to be a metaphor for relationships that on the surface are very different than what they seem. Watch closely for how the non-star supporting relationship of Nik and Paula defines the marriages of the leading actors of Leon & Sonja along with John and Valerie. Jane is one of the best portrayals of a home wrecker that I've seen. Like a criminal, people like this that you meet in real life, you try to keep a respectful distance.
This exceptional screenplay is adapted by Andrew Bovell from Speaking in Tongues which is another way of conveying what people do when they are "going through the motions". The overall acting is excellent with a truly standout performance by Kerry Armstrong.
Lantana gives us more than a few things to think about with respect to what we have done in the past and for contemplation in the future. Some people have affairs because sex is unencumbered by need. Love is a mutual surrender in which both people relinquish power. Without love, there will be destruction of the relationship of which an affair is just one way of the beginning of the end. Even with love, when the times are tough, it takes more than that to stand tall. If you can sense when things are coming close to the slippery slope, you just might be able to have the awareness of doing the right thing to make it through the "for better or for worse", for the better.
DVD