Stars: Geoffrey Rush, Anthony La Paglia, Barbara Hershey, Rachael Blake, Vince Colosimo

Director: Ray Lawrence

Summary: The story of eight individuals whose lives are interconnected by a murder investigation...

Ray Lawrence's LANTANA is an intelligent, well-written, well-acted film that is much more than just another cop thriller--it's more like YOU CAN COUNT ON ME with its realistic, complex relationships and believable characters. The film opens with a slow pan over a dead body, eerily reminiscent of BLUE VELVET. Anthony LaPaglia stars as Leon, a Sydney police detective who is cheating on his wife, Sonja (Kerry Armstrong), with a married woman from their dance class (Rachael Blake), even though he still loves his wife. There's something missing from his life, but he's not sure what. His relationship with his son is strained, and even his partner, Claudia (Leah Purcell), knows something is wrong. But as his affair heats up and a murder mystery that seems to involve all of the people in his life begins to consume his attentions, he is forced to reexamine his future both as a family man and a cop.
LANTANA won seven Australian Film Institute Awards, including best picture, best director for Lawrence, best actor for LaPaglia, best actress for Armstrong, best supporting awards for both Blake and Colosimo, and best adapted screenplay by Andrew Bovell, who based the script on his play SPEAKING IN TONGUES. As the murder investigation gets more complicated and the tangled web leads to even more lying, cheating, and deception, the acting intensifies, and the sharp dialogue allows the characters to blossom as beautifully as the lantana bush referred to in the title.

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Lantanateased its subtle way into the minds of cinemagoers in 2002 with a welcome reminder that nothing succeeds like a well-written, hypnotically acted drama that reflects the humanity, complexity and frailty of its audiences right back at them. Lantanais about betrayal, grief beyond recovery and the tenuous threads by which the most superficially ordinary relationships founder or survive. At the same time, it is quietly and profoundly life-affirming. It is, as producer Jan Chapman suggests during the director's commentary, "a film you have to pay attention to". But it rewards that attention.

Andrew Bovell's economic, absorbing script is based on his original stage play Speaking in Tongues. A series of coincidences creates a network of links between characters with unsettling and often shattering consequences. Like another Australian classic, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Lantanaexplores a constantly shifting line between deceit and honesty. It is a psychological mystery in which the land itself claims a life that has nowhere else to go. Director Ray Lawrence draws minutely observed performances from his actors, particularly Anthony LaPaglia as Leon, the Sydney detective in the throes of mid-life crisis, Kerry Armstrong as his wife Sonia and Barbara Hershey as Valerie, the psychologist whose panic finally releases her from an untenable situation. Lantanais engrossing from beginning to end.

On the DVD:Lantanais presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, bringing the extraordinary, realistic lighting of the original cinematography to life on the small screen. Paul Kelly's brooding score and the leitmotif of the Salsa songs make huge contributions to an intimate and often raw viewing experience. Apart from the fascinating director's commentary which tellingly reveals that a major Hollywood studio loved the concept but declined the project because the marketing department couldn't work out how to sell it, extras include the requisite making-of documentary, trailers and biographies. --Piers Ford

Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Year:	2001
Release Date:	March 17, 2003
Runtime:	115 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	902 494 2
Keywords:	General, Drama, Lantana
Genre:	Drama