Sunday, August 23, 2015

In Brief: Strangerland (2014)

In a desert town in Australia a couple is pushed to the breaking point when their two children go missing...

This is a very intense "family" drama about secrets, hidden pasts and unforgiven actions. Its a film with a very intense actions and interactions. There is enough intensity in the story that it could drive about a decade of your typical soap opera for a couple of years.

And that's kind of the problem with the film, everything in this film is really intense. Every one has secrets, everyone has something they are hiding or agonizing over. No one really forgives anyone anything they just use the actions to to injure each other and themselves.  All of the emotional blood letting would be fine if it added up to something but by the time the film ends things have kind of deflated as there are no real resolutions. The film ends but a good chunk of the plotlines are just left hanging with the result that I wasn't sure the trip through the emotional wronger was worth it.

On the plus side this is a film with some of the best performances by an ensemble of the year. Everyone, from top to bottom, is incredible.  If the film came together better or if this was later in the year I think an excellent case could be made for Nicole Kidman to get an Oscar nomination.

The film is currently out on DVD, Blu-ray and VOD.


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