Movie Description
While on his annual fishing trip with friends, Stewart (Gabriel Byrne) discovers a dead woman (Tatea Reilly) floating in a mountain river. Deciding that there's nothing they can do to help her at this point, Stewart, Carl (John Howard), Rocco (Stelios Yiakmis), and Billy (Simon Stone) continue their weekend, calling the police only after they've finished fishing and come down from the mountain. When they return to their small town of Jindabyne in New South Wales, they're surprised when their families and the community treat them with anger and hostility for their selfish, callous behavior. Stewart's wife, Claire (Laura Linney), is particularly disillusioned, calling into question her entire relationship with Stewart and their young son, Tom (Sean Rees-Wemyss), who himself has been getting into dangerous situations hanging around with a slightly older, troubled girl, Caylin-Calandria (Eva Lazzaro). And tensions are even higher because the murdered woman was a member of a nearby Aboriginal community, sparking cries of racism. Inspired by the Raymond Carver short story "So Much Water So Close to Home," JINDABYNE was written by playwright Beatrix Christian and directed with a subtle elegance by Ray Lawrence (BLISS, LANTANA). The film features gorgeous cinematography by David Williamson and outstanding performances all around. JINDABYNE touches on themes such as family, murder, abandonment, racism, faith, and redemption, but, at its heart, it's about the everyday choices people make in life--and how they live with the consequences.
| Credits | | Producer: | Catherine Jarman | | Cast: | Alice Garner, Betty Lucas, Chris Haywood, Eva Lazarro, John Howard, Sean Rees-Wemyss, Stelios Yiakmis, Tatea Reilly |
Editorial Reviews
"[T]here's no denying its technical bravado and the haunting power of its subject."
Box Office - Richard Mowe (12/01/2006)
"[With a] taut performance by Laura Linney as Claire, wife of one of the fisherman and a woman moved to dramatic acts of atonement." -- Grade: B
Entertainment Weekly - Lisa Schwarzbaum (04/27/2007)
"JINDABYNE concerns itself with emotions that lie under the surface of daily experience, and with a mysterious past murkily visible through the membrane of the present."
New York Times - A. O. Scott (04/27/2007)
3 stars out of 5 -- "Linney's intense performance emerges as a masterful portrait of contained anguish..."
Total Film - Neil Smith (07/01/2007)
"As in his previous film, LANTANA, Lawrence orchestrates an almost unbearable tension....[Filmed] in natural light, with its disconcerting glare and shadow..."
Sight and Sound - David Jays (06/01/2007)
| See an error? Submit a change request |
All rights reserved.
