Jindabyne Critic Reviews

Jindabyne's strength and power come from a number of factors: its origin, its current landscape and the unusual way its writer-director, Ray Lawrence, has chosen to work.Read the full review

The same organic characterizations that marked Lawrence's acclaimed 2001 film "Lantana" will attract fans of strong adult drama.Read the full review

In the end, it's all a bit too self-consciously mysterious and Lawrence leans a bit too much on the atmosphere to do the work for him as he builds to a frustrating ending. But his vision of a place haunted by a restlessness it can't define proves unsettlingly infectious.Read the full review

Jindabyne -- named for the lakeside town in which the troubles spill -- can't contain all that the filmmakers want to throw in. Best to keep glued to the taut performance by Laura Linney.Read the full review

The result is a mature and challenging motion picture, and something that will stick with viewers after the screen has gone dark.Read the full review

The real flaw is that the movie's best features -- the aching clarity of its central performances -- threaten to be lost in a wilderness of metaphor and mystification.Read the full review

Never obtains the full impact of its potentially powerful inner core.Read the full review

Where it works best is in the domestic dance of death between a husband and a wife. Linney flutters with increasingly panicky intelligence throughout the film, while Byrne sinks further into his own bulk.Read the full review

Has some strong acting. But largely because of its glacial pacing, the story ends up feeling too detached to move us as it should.Read the full review