Lantana

Voluptuous dance about love, pain and the whole damn thing. Read full review

It's one of the best surprises of the holiday season.

A wonderfully acted, acutely observed psychological drama. Read full review

Elegant but never overstated, sinister but never coldhearted, this is a note-perfect masterwork on a modest, human scale. Read full review

Stuns with writing, acting, direction. Read full review

Astonishingly well acted film, so much so that it seems unfair to single out any of the performances. Mr. Lawrence's camera sense is as sure and unobtrusive as his feel for acting. The movie just seems to happen, to grow out of the ground like a thorny plant, revealing the intricate intelligence of its design only in hindsight. Read full review

The acting is top-notch, and LaPaglia, who makes the cop's torment palpable, gives the performance of his career. Read full review

A remarkably thoughtful drama, Lantana makes it clear not only how hard to come by any emotional comfort is in this life, but more important, why we can't give up on the struggle. Read full review

Lawrence constructs a vivid pastiche of human foibles, nicely flavored with a touch of suspense and some well-timed jolts of humor. In the end it's a terrifically entertaining film, if not quite so profound as the makers might wish. Read full review

Lawrence's style, naturally lit and roughly realistic, matches the writing. Lantana sometimes has the air of a routine police procedural, sometimes the quality of a dour film noir. But this movie, so alert to mischance and dreams that don't quite work out as they should, has a good soul, a heart yearning for decency.

Notable for its power of surprise and its refusal to immediately clarify the confusion of these lost souls. Read full review

Has a refreshingly keen ability to see everything from multiple angles. Read full review

Perceptive, powerfully acted psychodrama. Read full review

Haunting, powerfully acted, penetratingly written, it's about people coming home -- and not coming home -- to their marriages. Read full review

More intent on engaging the heart as it explores the mysteries contained within - mysteries that, as Lawrence and his spot-on cast demonstrate, are far more compelling than simple murder. Read full review

This description no doubt makes the film seem like some kind of gimmicky puzzle. What's surprising is how easy it is to follow the plot, and how the coincidences don't get in the way. Read full review

It's LaPaglia's finest, deepest role and he's matched by Armstrong, who makes Sonja's undaunting optimism palpable within a trying marriage that's gulping for breath. Read full review

The story is ingeniously intricate but never gimmicky or implausible. As it develops, the suspense grows about what direction the story could possibly take next. Read full review

Striking for its performances -- especially Anthony LaPaglia. Read full review

In addition to the strong script, the ensemble performances are topnotch, with no one hogging the limelight. Read full review

For the briefest of moments, someone not paying attention might mistake Lantana for a mystery. -- Lantana is actually an examination of human interaction. Read full review

There's some genuine suspense in Lantana, including one unbearably tense moment that is worthy of Hitchcock. But the movie's most unnerving aspect is the way in which it suggests true happiness may be impossible to regain once you've lost it.

Steeped in quiet despair, Lantana is a psychological thriller that emphasizes the psychology over the thrills. It's a smart, heart-twisting picture.

This isn't a mystery except in the most general sense. It's a dense, Altman-esque psychological drama centering on 10 characters whose lives become as tangled as the lantana. Read full review

While the movie is well acted and creative, its story and style are too self-consciously clever to build a high degree of emotional power. Read full review

Love is indeed the greatest mystery, as Lantana's tagline goes, and while the film is ultimately still and interesting and fairly involving one, it's a bit unfortunate that the filmmakers weren't content to simply explore that quandary instead of manufacturing another. Read full review

While viewers who expect a conventional suspense film may be disappointed in Lantana overall, it does succeed on a smaller, more intimate scale. Read full review

Thought-provoking but proceeding at a crawl, the film suffers from performances that are virtually all pitched to the same note of existential ennui -- thank goodness, then, for Rush, who's arrives like a wake-up blast of compressed air. Read full review

The scenario eventually becomes so coincidence-choked that the filmmakers have no choice but to play it for mild snickers. Read full review