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Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

An extolled Aussie movie from director Ray Lawrence, who has only sporadically directed 3 films to date, LANTANA is the second one and indisputably the most well-known, in the opening gambit, a subjective camera sinuously ushers audience into a lantana bush in Sydney suburbia, instantly harks back to the beginning of David Lynch's BLUE VELVET (1986), then portentously reveals a female body and, in particular, points up the wedding ring on her finger. Who is the victim? Well, it will take over an hour before we find out, at the meantime, Lawrence impresses us as an excellent dramatist, the quotidian lives of four couples are interwoven lucidly through his ingenious diegetic device, in the center of the story is Leon (LaPaglia), a cop whose life seems to be perfect, still, he is cheating on his wife Sonja (Armstrong) with Jane (Blake), a woman recently separated from her husband Pete (Robbins). Without telling Leon, a discontented Sonja begins to visit the shrink Valerie (Hershey), to give a vent of her frustration and suspicion, meanwhile, Valerie and her husband John (Rush), an academic, are mired in inconsolable grief because two years ago, their 11-year-old daughter was murdered, to John's dissent, Valerie has written a book about their daughter to conciliate her post-traumatic state, but unbeknownst to her, John his own method to wrestle with his mourning process, an enormous emotional gap begins to drift themselves apart from each other.Soon, Jane discovers that what Leon wants is nothing but a one-night-stand because apparently he still loves his wife, she manages to make the nights into two, but their affair ends with a mutual cessation. A disheartened Jane hangs out with her next-door-neighbours, a young couple Nik (Colosimo) and Paula (Farinacci), they have three little ones, and take extra shifts in the work to make ends meet, but Paula keeps an alert eye on Jane and Nik. On the other hand, Valerie, becomes highly paranoid with her patient Patrick (Phelps), a gay man who is embroiled into a sexual relationship with a married man, she has a galling hunch that, the said married man is John and she is the wife who refuses to face the reality, during their sessions, the tension between them augments, and it doesn't augur well. The answer starts to be unveiled when Valerie is missing after presumably hitchhiking a vehicle in the late night when her car breaks down on her way home, Leo and his colleague Claudia (Purcell) start to investigate the case, and everyone aforementioned inevitably becomes a piece of the jigsaw (if one can accept the dramatic license that such coincidence can be realistically consigned to this small group of people), and the aftermath will precipitate a reverberation which can permanently affect their respective lives, to various degrees. As an archetypal character discourse, the film speaks volumes of how people constantly make wrong decisions due to our whimsical impulse and subsequently suffer from the ripple effects, in this case, a sudden death without a nominal perpetrator, still, near the end, the story lays bare who is the most culpable one. The gender politics is pungently underscored by the movie's tactful treatment of its core characters' foibles, men ooze danger from their carriage, sexually aggressive or manipulatively passive aggressive, hormone-driven and guilt-ridden, whereas women are dubious, paranoid, vindictive and perennially ambivalent in their feelings, what they say more often than not, is not consonant what they really think, yet the tenor never descends into either misandry or misogyny in Lawrence's clinical execution, because essentially those foibles are omnipresently residing inside every and each one of us, and so unobtrusive sometimes, they elude our consciousness completely, yet, the film testifies that, damage can be done, however so subliminal to each individual, a result borne out of an involuntarily accrued effect from those who are randomly interconnected. On top of that, Lawrence masters a tactile sense of fluidity and empathy into the story-line, sublimates an urban mystery into an intoxicating study of love, trust, betrayal, deception and grief, and renders its poignant after-effect anything but fault-finding.Great ensemble consisted of a mostly indigenous cast (Armstrong, Blake and Colosimo all deserve a name-check), LaPaglia returns to his motherland from his usual Hollywood turf and is instigated into an arresting turn easily his career-best, a tough cop compromised by his betrayal out of domestic ennui, not entirely sympathetic but the performance is undeniably visceral. Geoffrey Rush, buckles down to the most evasive and embattled role amongst of all, is a marvel to witness, so is Ms. Hershey, comes on board after her fantastic tour-de-force in Jane Campion's THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY (1996), she proffers her character with a strong dosage of self-affirmation and at once shows her fatal vulnerability which makes Valerie's ill-fated disappearance excruciatingly unsettling. The film corroborates again why she is the most undervalued thespian among her USA compatriots, a two-time Cannes' BEST ACTRESS honor has failed to ricochet her into a much celebrated sphere where enshrines Meryl Streep, Jessica Lange, Sissy Spacek and Glenn Close of that ilk. In short, Lantana is a must-see for keen-eyed cinephiles.

Lantana is an excellent drama that is executed with style and authority by the director Ray Lawrence, screen writer Andrew Bovell, DP Mandy Walker and a cast of superb actors. Lawrence directs Bovell's screenplay and the cast with confidence, and this is complemented by Walker's excellent photographic style using washed out colours and interesting lighting.Bovell's screenplay has the main characters interacting with each other through circumstance but the central story is that of La Paglia's police detective. Seeking solace from his marriage and potential heart problems, his affair with fellow salsa student is the springboard for the convoluted relationships within the story. The crime drama is merely a framework to hang the various stories of fractured relationships upon. Dr Somers, the counsellor played by Hershey, is so screwed up by the murder of her daughter she is unbalanced and paranoid. Thinking the gay client she interviews is having a relationship with her estranged husband played by Rush, she eventually ends up stranded in an isolated backwater after a car crash and when she is picked up by Nic, the neighbour of Detective Zat's lover, she believes he is about to rape her and throws herself from the car. When she fails to return home, and Nic is seen disposing of one of her shoes by Jane, Zat's lover, a full-blown murder investigation is soon underway.But this really just gives the viewer an insight to Nic's relationship with his wife, Hannah. A relationship built on trust and mutual respect. When Hannah tells Jane, her neighbour and Zat's lover, that he didn't commit the murder, Jane asks how she knows. Her reply is central to the theme of the movie, she tells Jane she knows because Nic told her he didn't do it. Their love for each other and belief in each other is very different to that experienced by the other three couples.Zat and his wife are just going through the motions, and as Sonja, Zat's wife, tells her counsellor, who happens to be Dr Somers, she wants much more from life. Detective Zat is going through his midlife crisis, unable to communicate with his wife and it is his youngest son who, by fabricating his father's response in a phone call, allows his mother to see that she still has strong feelings for her husband. And Zat's lover, Jane, eventually sees the good in her own estranged husband.So really a story about couples' relationships and the inability to be honest and share innermost feelings, but filmed through the backdrop of a crime drama. Brilliantly executed by a fantastic team of technicians and actors.

This is classed as a thriller, and while it doesn't have the most "thrilling" moments, it is a film that will certainly grip you. Basically it is an ensemble character film that sees Detective Leon Zat (The Client's Anthony LaPaglia) having an affair with dance class attendee Jane 'Janie' O'May (Rachael Blake), Leon's wife Sonja (Kerry Armstrong) sees psychiatrist Dr. Valerie Somers (Beaches' Barbara Hershey), and she suspects her husband John Knox (Geoffrey Rush) is having an affair with one of her gay patients. Valerie is driving home one night and has her car break down, and the next morning John reports her missing to the police, and Leon is the one investigating. After confessing his affair to an upset Sonja, Leon then goes to Valerie's married neighbours, nurse Paula Daniels (Daniella Farinacci) and husband Nik (Vince Colosimo). Nik saw Jane throw something out the car window into the Lantana plants, it's Valerie's shoe, and Nik is taken into custody refusing to answer any questions. Eventually it comes out that Nik was driving along the road, and picked Valerie up, but she jumped out again as they went along an unknown road, leaving behind the shoe. So Leon, his partner Detective Claudia Wiss (Leah Purcell), Nik and John go to the spot where she jumped out, and they do find her body, she accidentally fell down. When Leon returns home, he listens to the tapes of his wife having therapy with Valerie, she said she still loves him, and he cries. He then goes to Sonja, and then film ends with them dancing seductively together, Leon has improved his steps, and Sonja can't quite have as much passion, and whether they make up or not is not answered. With great performances, I can agree the finding of the dead body plot line becomes a little less interesting compared to the drama of the character relationships, all involving chance and coincidence, a controlled Australian film. Very good!

This is an excellent film, with great characters and surprising twists. The movie opens with Valerie dead, lying in the thorny brush known locally as lantana - a metaphor, of course, for what life is like for the characters in the tangled plot. Valerie Somers is played by Barbara Hershey, and her husband John Knox by Geoffrey Rush. Anthony LaPaglia plays the police detective Leon Zat investigating her death. We see Valerie and John in flashbacks, showing a deteriorating relationship, and we see Leon in the present, cheating on his wife. Although none of the characters knows each other, their lives are intertwined nonetheless. It's a thicket of relationships that scratches and draws blood.LaPaglia and Rush are outstanding. John is a major suspect, as all husbands are in the deaths of their wives, and John and Leon spar as the investigation shows the bad blood between John and Valerie. We learn, finally, that John is factually innocent, but he is morally guilty of her death all the same. Leon at first sneers at John and his naked emotion, but events turn on Leon, wrenching from him his manly self esteem.This is an adult film, dealing with adult themes. No action, no gunfights, no superheroes. Just us humans muddling through. Director Ray Lawrence and writer Andrew Bovell give us much to chew over, moments of understanding, and finally acceptance of our condition.