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Laura Linney, Gabriel Byrne, Deborra-Lee Furness, John Howard (II), Leah Purcell ... see more see more... , Stelios Yiakmis , Alice Garner , Simon Stone , Betty Lucas , Chris Haywood , Eva Lazzaro , Sean Rees-Wemyss , Tatea Reilly , Max Cullen , Charles 'Bud' Tingwell

A family is touched by the shadows of hatred and violence in this Australian drama adapted from a short story by Raymond Carver. Stewart (Gabriel Byrne) and Claire (Laura Linney) are a married couple ... read more read more...in their early fourties; Stewart runs a gas station while Claire looks after their son, Tom (Sean Rees-Wemyss). Tom has been grounded for the weekend after killing a small animal with his friend Caylin (Eva Lazzaro), and Claire keeps an eye on him while Stewart goes off on a fishing trip with his pals Carl (John Howard), Rocco (Stelios Yiakmis), and Billy (Simon Stone). After arriving at their favorite fishing spot, Stewart finds the naked body of a woman floating down the river; unbeknownst to him, Gregory (Chris Haywood), an elderly man riddled with racial hatred, killed Susan (Tatea Reilly), a young woman of Aboriginal heritage, and dumped her body in the water. Believing they wouldn't be able to drive to town to report finding the body and get back to make camp before nightfall, Stewart decides to wait until morning to contact the police, and ties a line to the corpse so it won't float away. The next morning, Stewart and his friends decide not to spoil their trip and spend the day fishing; they don't contact the police until after they return home on Monday. Stewart's callous actions cast an ugly light on himself, his friends, and his family, and Claire finds herself implicated in the crime through Stewart's poor judgment. Named for an Aboriginal word for a valley, Jindabyne received its world premiere at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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49% liked it

7,957 ratings

Critics

65% liked it

96 critics

R, 2 hr. 3 min.

Directed by: Ray Lawrence

Release Date: April 27, 2006

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DVD Release Date: October 2, 2007

Stats: 865 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (865)

  • Redlats
    May 27, 2009
    Redlats
    This is a difficult movie to watch. Understanding Stewart's and Claire's relationship isn't easy. The story is not really about the girl's murder, yet we keep seeing the murderer weave in and out of the movie. I will have to watch it a second time to try to understand it

    I th... read moreought I had seen this movie before, but it was part of the movie 'Short Cuts' I remembered (based on the same short story by Raymond Carver).
  • paulsandberg
    October 27, 2008
    paulsandberg
    here is a case of an intimate film that tries to encompass too much.
    A simple morality tale; of not doing what society will have you believe to be the "right thing" and the conseqences of not only your actions, but the mores society places on you.

    The film attempts to instill a... read more sense of displacement; all of the charactors are trying to make the best of things, even though they are clinging to symbolic gestures and icons of attachment to time, place, and the people around them. In truth, an almost existential tone pervades this effort, and as such, it could have held its ground; but the spiritual overtones are devisive and distracting.

    The impetus of the film comes from four fishing buddies who discover a recently dead body while on their much anticipated yearly fishing trip. Rather than make the day hike out of the canyon to report the body, they spend the weekend as they normally would, and only report the incident after leaving at their normal time.

    The truth eventually comes out and the community and family are outraged by their callous insensitivity; ignoring that the girl was already dead so it would make no difference to her (and in such a remote location it wasn't as if the delay would have made any difference in potentially catching the killer - and at this point no-one has any idea of how she died).

    The fisherman believe they've done enough by simply tying her to a tree limb so her body wouldn't float downstream and over a waterfall, and it is ironic that this bow to "humanity" leads to the discovery of their "insensitivity" and sets off a chain reaction of hate.

    Of course the real issue is that the dead girl was an Aboriginie, so their neglect appears to be racial (when it was really just a snap reaction to having to waste their only time off in order to report their findings).

    Laura Linney, as one of the wives of the fisherman, then goes on a Quixonic quest to appease her own sense of self as much as appeasing the Aboriginal population. This takes her to the Aboriginal "funeral", a sequence that goes on way too long and is ackward - perhaps by intention.

    The undercurrent to all this surface action is the sense of disenfrancisement - even the city itself, Jindabyne, was moved from its original location because it was in the way of a new reservoir. There are plenty of scenes of the children facing the dangers of the unknown swimming and playing in and around the reservoir, many of which seem to interupt the narrative, and serving the sole purpose of reminding the viewer that we're all just fish out of water.

    I admire the vision, but felt that the execution could have been tighter.
  • gor41
    December 23, 2007
    gor41
    Beautifully shot outback drama which captures the countryside in all its glory. Unfortunately the plot meanders on for way too long and even Laura Linney can't sustain your interest.
  • ceWEBrity
    November 28, 2007
    ceWEBrity
    Jindabyne is overstuffed with far too many small, great stories. It would have done best putting the primary focus on Laura Linney and Gabriel Byrne's tumultuous marriage, but instead we get subplots about aboriginal racism, serial killers, fishing, and evil little children. Not ... read morethat any of those would make for a particularly bad movie (except for fishing - but in this context it works), but they all seem to be fighting for a moment in the sun when they would have best served their purpose as dramatic devices. Jindabyne's just a case of one film trying to be too much.

    It really is a shame, because there is so much to enjoy about what we get here. Linney is stunning as always, and Byrne is frigid and remarkable; all the other performances are equally resonant. The movie itself is eerie and almost moribund; its atmosphere is great. A subtle, haunting score and the plains of Australia create a very strong impression, whether you want them to or not.

    It's not that this is a bad movie - quite the contrary - but it's a brazen waste of potential. With a more judicious editor and a pared-down script, this could be Oscar-winning fare. In its current form, it makes for a good solid dramatic mystery and little else.
  • bbcfloridabound
    October 28, 2007
    bbcfloridabound
    Pretty good Flix, good for a weekend with nothing to do. Its Australlian, a little slow. Worth the rent.
  • RossCollinsUK
    September 2, 2007
    RossCollinsUK
    Tensions in an Australian small town community escalate when four friends discover a dead body on a fishing trip. Slow psycho-drama.
  • deano
    January 4, 2007
    deano
    Brilliant drama about a murder and a marriage. Laura Linney is the best performance in this film that gives great courage.
  • fb1144932598
    May 21, 2009
    fb1144932598
    What do you do when you discover that the man you thought you knew and loved is not guided by the same moral compass as you? What if your mental stability is questioned because of a previous bout with severe post-partum depression? How do you engage your significant other and get... read more him to explain his actions to you? That, in a nutshell, is Jindabyne. Claire (Laura Linney) is trying to understand how Stewart (Gabriel Byrne) and his buddies could blythely go on fishing with the dead body of a young woman tethered in the stream. The interplay between these two characters, their friends, and their disapproving neighbors form the core of this highly emotional film. A subtext concerns the man who killed the girl and may be a serial killer. This subtext, however, was kept on the very fringe. The real meat of the film was in Stewart's inability to admit to any wrongdoing and Claire's need to atone for what she perceived was a great moral failure. Interesting interaction with the aboriginal culture and a taste of the racial tension that exists in the land down under. Great cast, heartbreaking story, starkly beautiful scenery, and a couple of heartpounding moments combine to make this a winner that is still, at times, tough to watch.
  • gator681
    March 16, 2008
    gator681
    [font=Century Gothic]"Jindabyne," based on the same Raymond Carver story that formed part of Robert Altman's "Short Cuts," is a frustrating attempt to stretch it to a full-length movie, setting it in a resort town in Australia. In this case the body belongs to Susan Cooper(Tatea... read more Reilly), a young Aboriginal woman who disappeared on her way to a music festival. Her body is discovered by Stewart Kane(Gabriel Byrne), a white mechanic on a fishing trip with three buddies, whose American wife, Claire(Laura Linney, excellent again), has been suffering from nausea, hoping that she is pregnant, because the alternative is too horrifying to contemplate.[/font]
    [font=Century Gothic][/font]
    [font=Century Gothic]The major problem with "Jindabyne" is not with the leisurely pacing(which does allow time to capture the beautiful Australian countryside wonderfully). It is in how the movie is constructed, giving too much time to establish how much of an outsider Claire is.(Personally, I don't blame her for being alarmed that her son brought a knife to school. And I find all children to be a little creepy but that little girl takes the cake.) More time should have been spent at the fishing party, just enough to draw out the horror while revealing less about Susan's killer which should have been left more of a mystery. And the ending is particularly weak.[/font]
    [font=Century Gothic][/font]
    [font=Century Gothic]What would have been interesting is if one half of the movie had been spent with the Kanes, and the other half with the Coopers, which would have provided more of a dialogue on racism instead of the usual language of denunciation that we are already so used to hearing. What the movie is concerned with is how the everyday lies we tell separate us from not only our loved ones but also men from women and people of different skin color into different camps. [/font]
  • Nutterjr
    December 15, 2007
    Nutterjr
    If I had to use one word about the film it would be disturbing.

View All Jindabyne Reviews

Critic Reviews

Michael Booth
June 20, 2007
Michael Booth, Denver Post

The movie's remaining revelations build slowly into a set of surprisingly powerful emotional beats. Full Review

Roger Moore
June 8, 2007
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel

A fish tale worth telling and worth hearing. Full Review

Bill Muller
June 7, 2007
Bill Muller, Arizona Republic

The frustration here is that none of this leads anywhere. Perhaps that is the point, that some mysteries are never solved, but Jindabyne could give us a little more to work with. Full Review

Desson Thomson
May 25, 2007
Desson Thomson, Washington Post

Clearly, in his bid to repurpose Carver's story, Lawrence misses the writer's prevailing ethos: the sense of self-contained internal misery and that haunting quality of being hopelessly human. Full Review

Steven Rea
May 18, 2007
Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

[Director] Lawrence's compelling little film pursues a deep question: why people make the choices that they do - and how they then live with those decisions, right or wrong, weak or strong. Full Review

Ty Burr
May 18, 2007
Ty Burr, Boston Globe

The resolution Jindabyne eventually offers feels small and safe. The movie goes out with a whimper. Full Review

Geoff Pevere
May 11, 2007
Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star

Easy to admire but considerably harder to enjoy. Full Review

Mick LaSalle
May 11, 2007
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

Intelligent, superbly acted and finely observed, but Jindabyne suffers from too many extraneous elements and from a story that doesn't land with enough force or purpose. Full Review

Chris Vognar
May 11, 2007
Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News

It's hard not to admire the film's confidence in making the story its own, and Ms. Linney, a mix of iron will and emotional fragility, delivers her usual complex performance. Full Review

J. R. Jones
May 4, 2007
J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader

Too many extraneous elements have been added but at the movie's center lies the knotty story of a marriage poisoned by amorality. Full Review

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