Jindabyne (R)

Intense relationship drama for adults only.

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Movie details

Studio: Sony Pictures Classics , Sony Pictures Classics
Directed By: Ray Lawrence
Cast: Gabriel Byrne, Laura Linney, Deborra-Lee Furness
Running Time: 123 minutes
Release Date: 04/27/2007
Video/DVD Release Date: 10/02/2007
Genre: Drama
MPAA Rating: R
MPAA Explanation: disturbing images, language and some nudity.

Parents need to know

Parents need to know that this short story-based film is a bleak study of human cruelty in the form of emotional sabotage and actual murder. There are many violent episodes -- from the opening sequence in which a serial killer stalks his prey to a scene in which two children kill a pet to an emotionally jarring exchange in which a husband and wife fight each other with words and fists. Racism also rears its nasty head, and there are disturbing close-ups of a murdered woman. Characters drink, smoke, and swear.

Families can talk about how the media can vilify or anoint someone because of their choices. In some cases -- like the one presented in this movie, in which four men ignore a dead body until their vacation is done -- is it justified? If so, why? Does the film explain why the men decide to do what they did? Does it make sense? Is the reaction they get from their families understandable or outrageous? How do such moments bring some people closer and tear others apart?

Message
Violence
Sex
Language

Message

Social Behavior:

Disturbing moments include a child nearly causing a playmate to drown; physical abuse between spouses (a man and woman attack each other verbally and with their arms and fists in a discomfortingly realistic fight); crimes such as tampering with evidence; racial conflict.

Consumerism:

Some product placement in the gas station, but nothing easily identifiable.

Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco:

Lots of alcohol. The four men guzzle beer on their fishing trip and at a party beforehand. Some shots of characters smoking.

Violence

Lots of it, and in all forms -- from verbal abuse to outright murder. A serial killer hunts down women and unceremoniously dumps a partially naked body into a lake. Also, children kill a pet, intending to use it for sacrifice. A man punches his pal on the nose and breaks it. One of the children keeps a dead bird that she presumably also killed.

Sex

A husband and wife have sex (though there's no nudity). Some talk of sex. A partially naked corpse.

Language

Occasional use of everything from "damn" to "holy s--t" to "f--k."

Common Sense says

What's the story?

Reviewed by S. Jhoanna Robledo

In the Australian ski town of Jindabyne, ex-race-car driver Stewart (Gabriel Byrne) now runs a local service station and is in the throes of staving off the panic that comes with age. He's also dealing with an atrophying marriage to his American wife, Claire (Laura Linney), who, years before, abandoned him for 18 months soon after giving birth to their son. She's back now, but only just. When Stewart and his friends Carl (John Howard), Rocco (Stelios Yiakmis), and Billy (Simon Stone) embark on a fishing expedition, they find a corpse ... and decide to let it float until they're done with their trip and ready to report it to the cops. And then the underlying issues that Stewart and Claire never quite addressed tend to submerge them once and for all.

Is it any good?

JINDABYNE is based on Raymond Carver's l;ean, Spartan story "So Much Water So Close to Home." Cinematographer David Williamson hews close to Carver's voice -- spare, taut, forceful. Through Williamson's lens, the forces of nature, human and otherwise, threaten to disturb the peace. But director Ray Lawrence moves far beyond Carver's restrained look at choice and consequence, embracing displaced grief, animism, and racism. All of which makes for a fascinating and deeply distressing -- but unfortunately less potent -- adaptation.

Linney masters the intoxicating mix of shock, rage, and isolation that engulfs Claire; her performance is equaled only by Byrne's slow burn. Their relationship is true to Carver's trademark broken twosomes. The damage they inflict on each other -- and on their child -- is nearly as murderous as the dead woman's killer's gruesome handiwork. Had Lawrence gone so far as to show Stewart and Claire break each other down to their bitter and oh-so-human essence, Jindabyne would have been more courageous for it.