Susan Granger’s review of “LANTANA” (Lions Gate Films)
From Australia comes one of the most compelling psychological dramas of the season. Screenwriter Andrew Bovell has expanded his “Speaking in Tongues” play into this probing story about relationships as the lives of ten characters interweave. Anthony LaPaglia plays Leon Zat, a troubled, philandering detective who is casually unfaithful to his wife (Kerry Armstrong) with a newly separated woman (Rachael Blake) whom he met at a salsa dancing class. Suspecting her husband’s adultery, the wife visits a psychiatrist (Barbara Hershey) to whom she confides, “It isn’t that he’s slept with another woman, it’s that he’s lied to me about it – that’s the betrayal.” The therapist has her own obsessions, revolving around her 11 year-old daughter’s murder and her subsequent emotional estrangement from her repressed husband (Geoffrey Rush) whom she now suspects is involved with her arrogantly antagonistic gay patient (Peter Phelps). Plus there are happily-married, working-class neighbors (Vince Colosimo, Daniela Farinacci) who are implicated when a woman’s corpse is discovered in a clump of lantana – thick, thorny bushes that infest the rural areas of Sydney, plants whose only redeeming feature is their exotic, aromatic flowers. While director Ray Lawrence (“Bliss”) intrigues us with the whodunit thriller element, he’s clearly focused on coincidence and realism as the vulnerable characters, each with something to hide, develop a curiously compelling, multi-layered connection with one another as their lives collide. Unfortunately, the film’s heavily symbolic and sluggishly paced, threatening to conclude several times before it actually does. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Lantana” is an engaging, intriguing 8, a saga of betrayal and deceit recommended for adult audiences only.
