just watch it!

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Several suburban Sydney residents find their marriages and relationships strained when an eminent local psychiatrist disappears in the middle of the night in this Australian mystery thriller starring Anthony LaPaglia. Upon first glance, 'Lantana' seems like nothing more than a straightforward drama, rife with melodramatic coincidences and with an ordinate amount of time spent on characters rambling about all of their personal problems. A second viewing, however, proves 'Lantana' to be decidedly more than just that; while an ensemble piece, LaPaglia's jaded detective is always at the forefront of the film, and as he is asked "don't you just want to cry sometimes?" along the way and then later that told that "most men hold something back", the film really becomes about LaPaglia experiencing some sort of wakening inside and coming to reevaluate what he is doing by cheating on his wife and taking her for granted. That said, the supporting characters are quite fascinating too; Kerry Armstrong has a very strong turn as LaPaglia's wife, while Geoffrey Rush and Barbara Hershey hold a lot of interest in how differently they react to their preteen daughter's death. The film's promotional tagline - "sometimes love isn't enough" - comes from something Rush says about his own marriage, and all of the relationship drama in the film (not only between LaPaglia and Armstrong) seems to revolve around this paradigm in a sense. The couples in the film are brought together by love, but some of them - just some of them - feel like they need something more.

"Lantana" is an Australian drama from 2001 about four couples in the Sydney area (where the film was shot). There are some important peripheral characters as well. The husband of the main couple is a detective going through a mid-life crisis (Anthony LaPaglia). His wife (Kerry Armstrong) knows something's wrong and is getting counseling. The marriage of the counselor (Barbara Hershey) is also troubled due to the death of their young daughter a couple of years earlier. The woman the detective is having a fling with (Rachael Blake) thinks her neighbor (Vince Colosimo) may be involved in the counselor's mysterious disappearance. This is odd because the suspect's marriage is, ironically, the only solid relationship in the story. The counselor's husband is also a suspect (Geoffrey Rush) and has insightful things to share about marriage with the brooding detective.The reason the film's called "Lantana" is because lantana is a tangled shrub common in Australia, which represents the entanglements of the lives of the characters. It also symbolizes marriage since lantana has a sweet but bitter smell; it's beautiful with its flowers, but has "stings"; its branches weave together in a complicated way and in the story a woman is caught in the complexity of it."Lantana" is the antithesis of big, dumb, effects-laden "blockbusters," which -- oddly enough -- often become boring with their overload of "exciting" things going on. "Lantana" effectively shows that ordinary life is more interesting and compelling, if done right. Human nature is explored through a blend of passionate emotions, misconceptions, betrayals, anger, premature conclusions, vanity, duty, ethics, honesty, loyalty and repentance.Two of my all-time favorite dramas are "Grand Canyon" and "Snow Angels". I place "Lantana" in their company. That's how good it is.The film runs 121 minutes.GRADE: A

Australian screenwriter and director Ray Lawrence's second feature film which was written by Australian playwright and screenwriter Andrew Bovell, is an adaptation of Andrew Bovell's stage play called "Speaking in Tongues" from 1996. It premiered at the 48th Sydney Film Festival in 2001, was shot on location in Sydney, Australia and is an Australian production which was produced by Australian producer Jan Chapman. It tells the story about a police officer named Leon who lives in a suburb with his wife named Sonja and their two sons. Leon and Sonja are both having concerns about their marriage and whilst Sonja talks to a psychiatrist named Valerie, Leon befriends a woman named Jane. Distinctly and precisely directed by Australian filmmaker Ray Lawrence, this rhythmic fictional tale which is narrated from multiple viewpoints, draws an invariably engaging portrayal of a cop who after beginning an affair with a woman he meets at a dancing course learns that a therapist has disappeared. While notable for it's naturalistic milieu depictions, sterling production design by production designer Kim Buddee, cinematography by cinematographer Mandy Walker and costume design by costume designer Margot Wilson, this character-driven and narrative-driven story depicts several interrelated and refined studies of character and contains an efficient score by Australian composer Paul Kelly. This romantic, conversational and atmospheric thriller which is set in Sydney, Australia and where interpersonal relations and personalities are acutely examined and characters as poignant as the stories, is impelled and reinforced by it's cogent narrative structure, subtle character development, enigmatic characters, incorporation of theater in cinema and the reverent acting performances by Australian actors Anthony LaPaglia and Geoffrey Rush, Australian actresses Rachael Blake and Kerry Armstrong and American actress Barbara Hershey. An eloquent, dramatic and multifaceted mystery from the early 2000s which gained, among numerous other awards, the award for Best Film at the 43rd AFI Awards in 2001.

This is such a gem, that it pains. Everything right where they should be, beautifully perfectly executed. Fantastically portrayed with vigorous honesty. And the timing ? Bang on! Utterly beautiful and I am going quite frothy at my mouth now.For anybody with taste, this is un-miss-able. This is exactly how film-making should be where ideas merge seamlessly to create a masterpiece which can touch hearts. Apart from it's obvious brilliance, this movie has such a soul. This is so soulful. All the dots connect in the end and it is staggering. Kudos to everybody even remotely associated with the movie for having done us the honours. Watch it. Very highly recommended.