This Australian film stars Anthony Lapaglia (don’t be surprised at his accent, he’s a native of Oz), Geoffroy Rush, Barbara Hershey, and Kerry Armstrong as husbands and wives whose paths cross through work and play. Lantana is a drama that compares the lies that bind couples to the lantana, “a genus of tropical shrub with small, colorful blooms that hides a dense, thorny undergrowth.” In fact director Ray Lawrence consistently uses shots of lantana to move our viewpoint into scenes, beginning with the very first frames of the movie. Perhaps he and writer Andrew Bovell were a little unsure their audience could pick up on a more subtle take but overall I did enjoy this character-driven piece.
Lapaglia is married to Armstrong who is a patient of psychiatrist Hershey who is married to Rush, then Hershey disappears after her car breaks down on a dark country road and police detective Lapaglia investigates. Rachel Blake, who attends a salsa dance class with Lapaglia and Armstrong, sees her neighbor toss a ladies shoe into some lantana across the street and has her husband Glenn Robbins (from whom she is separated) call Lapaglia, with whom she had a brief but ended affair. When Lapaglia shows up at her house, Robbins recognizes him from the pub where they had met a night or two before after Robbins was accosted in the street by Hershey. Confused yet? Don’t worry, the movie doesn’t tax your mind keeping track of all these connections. An arthouse film worth seeing.
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