Average Rating: 6.4/10
Reviews Counted: 95
Fresh: 61 | Rotten: 34
Jindabyne's disparate themes may not quite cohere, but the film features fine performances from Linney and Byrne.
Average Rating: 6/10
Critic Reviews: 28
Fresh: 15 | Rotten: 13
Jindabyne's disparate themes may not quite cohere, but the film features fine performances from Linney and Byrne.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 7,914
A family is touched by the shadows of hatred and violence in this Australian drama adapted from a short story by Raymond Carver. Stewart (Gabriel Byrne) and Claire (Laura Linney) are a married couple in their early fourties; Stewart runs a gas station while Claire looks after their son, Tom (Sean Rees-Wemyss). Tom has been grounded for the weekend after killing a small animal with his friend Caylin (Eva Lazzaro), and Claire keeps an eye on him while Stewart goes off on a fishing trip with his
Apr 27, 2006 Wide
Oct 2, 2007
$0.2M
Sony Pictures Classics
All Critics (98) | Top Critics (28) | Fresh (64) | Rotten (35) | DVD (10)
The movie's remaining revelations build slowly into a set of surprisingly powerful emotional beats.
A fish tale worth telling and worth hearing.
The frustration here is that none of this leads anywhere. Perhaps that is the point, that some mysteries are never solved, but Jindabyne could give us a little more to work with.
Clearly, in his bid to repurpose Carver's story, Lawrence misses the writer's prevailing ethos: the sense of self-contained internal misery and that haunting quality of being hopelessly human.
[Director] Lawrence's compelling little film pursues a deep question: why people make the choices that they do - and how they then live with those decisions, right or wrong, weak or strong.
The resolution Jindabyne eventually offers feels small and safe. The movie goes out with a whimper.
Although Jindabyne's cinematography features sweeping scenes of the Australian countryside as stunning as any of those opening shots from Brokeback Mountain, it ultimately has some bigger issues.
Less a moral dilemma than a meditation on the differences between men and women in matters of social decorum.
Intense relationship drama for adults only.
In addition to a large collection of movie trailers, the disc includes two excellent extras.
While it's most certainly not light viewing, and it's entirely devoid of 'Hollywood moments', this is a fine, intelligent, troubling film.
Raymond Carver's story was about value judgments and priorities, and when Jindabyne explores similar moral dilemmas it's successful. But when it veers off into subplots that offer psychotic children and racial incidents . . .
A whole lot of padding turns a fine enough story into a dour, wordy slog.
The film is novelistic in its nuance, in the patience of its storytelling and in the complexity of its mostly unhappy characters.
There is some great acting here, and some scenes do have an undercurrent of elemental power in them that tugs at your ankles. But the film never pulls you in.
"I do just what I want to do/ I want everything and I want you, too/I wish I could explain to you/But the things men without women do/You just don't understand."
The filmmakers do not feel the need to fill in every single blank for viewers by the time the credits roll. Just as in reality, these characters' problems are not going to be solved with the wave of a magic wand; there are no short cuts to happiness.
Impressively directed, thoroughly engaging drama with terrific performances and a superb script. This is one of the best films of the year.
This is a difficult movie to watch. Understanding Stewart's and Claire's relationship isn't easy. The story is not really about the girl's murder, yet we keep seeing the murderer weave in and out of the movie. I will have to watch it a second time to try to understand itI thought I had seen this movie before, but it
May 27, 2009Super Reviewer
here is a case of an intimate film that tries to encompass too much.A simple morality tale; of not doing what society will have you believe to be the "right thing" and the conseqences of not only your actions, but the mores society places on you. The film attempts to instill a sense of displacement; all of the
October 27, 2008
Super Reviewer
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