Jindabyne

Back to the main review

What’s the Story?

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.