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Taking on a daring role and giving a very good performance, Nicole Kidman works her magic in Strangerland. Taking her back to her Australian roots, Kidman looks like she’s right at home in the vast openness of the unbridled territory. The captivating film has a fine cast and incredibly stunning cinematography that uplifts the good, but somewhat challenging storyline. Now available on DVD and Blu-ray.
Matthew Parker (Joseph Fiennes) and his wife Catherine (Nicole Kidman) have settled in small town Nathgari, Australia after an incident that upended them, forcing the move from the larger city of Coonaburra. Matthew works as the town’s pharmacist for less wages while Catherine tends to the children who were affected psychologically by the move. Their promiscuous fifteen-year-old daughter Lilly (Maddison Brown) has become a handful getting herself involved with the local ruffians who dominate a makeshift bicycle park. Their preteen son Tom (Nicholas Hamilton) has never recovered from the reason for the move and has been going out after everyone’s asleep for long walks returning before dawn.
Nathgari is very small in both shopping area and population. Hundreds of miles of vast dessert and mountains surround the housing area that has thrived in spite of the meager resident growth. Well liked, Mathew serves his customers each day and opens the pharmacy in emergencies. Late one night Tom goes out for another of his bizarre walks, moments latter Lilly climbs through her bedroom window entering the darkness. The next morning Catherine finds both Tom and Lilly gone and informs police officer David Rae (Hugo Weaving). So begins the strange mystery revolving around several suspects.
Director Kim Farrant keeps her film suspenseful throughout holding the audience captive as the story unfolds. It gets gripping as accusations fly and memories of Lilly’s past conflict gets revealed. However, as compelling the story, it does ramble a bit, doesn’t flesh out some of the secondary characters enough, and keeps the audience guessing in the end. If you are not affected by this type of storytelling, then you’ll be just fine with it. That said, the acting by the central cast does make up for this short coming by entertaining with some startling and intriguing scenes.
The cinematography of the Australian territory gets very stunning showing the wide prairies and red sprawling mountains. The towns are drenched in the red clay from dust storms and makeshift kid parks look typical of low income areas even in America. Speaking of dust storms, the one in the film gets very ominous and the special effects of rolling dust clouds showering the red stuff enveloping the town looks very realistic. Night scenes using moonlight are very effective and interior shots of the slowly decaying homes are reminiscent of the movie Australia (also starring Nicole Kidman).
Even though the film’s storyline may give the feel of déjà vu since other flicks of missing children may come to mind, the acting by the central cast is worth buying or renting Strangerland. Nicole Kidman’s character has a very good arc going from an eager caring wife with a questionable past to a very emotional and frantic mother who finds herself insistent that foul play must be involved with her missing children. It’s nice to see some of her acting passion return that once was Kidman’s identity.
The DVD has two bonus features that are actually pretty good.
“Cast Featurette”- Director Kim Farrant, stars Joseph Fiennes, Hugo Weaving and Nicole Kidman and producer Macdara Kelleher are among the participants that talk about their characters and the story.
“Story Featurette”-Along with Director of Photogarapy P.J. Dillon cast members, director and producer go over scenes from the film, locations and sets.
Strangerland has been rated R by the MPAA for language, some sexuality and brief graphic nudity.
FINAL ANALYSIS- A good suspense filled movie with some very good acting. (B-)
Specifications and additional video information:
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Joseph Fiennes, Hugo Weaving, Maddison Brown, Lisa Flanagan, Meyne Wyatt, Nicholas Hamilton.
Director: Kim Farrant
MPAA Rating: R for language, some sexuality and brief graphic nudity
Genre: Drama, Foreign
Running Time: 1 hr. 42 min.
Original Theatrical Release Date: July 10, 2015
Video Release Date: August 18, 2015
Language: English
Reviewed Format: DVD (also available on Blu-ray)
Audio: Surround Sound 5.1, 2.0
Video: Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 2.40:1
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish
Number of Discs: 1 Disc
Distributed by: Alchemy
Writer, critic, film editor John Delia, Sr. has been on all sides of the movie business from publications to film making. He has worked as a film critic with ACED Magazine for more than 20 years and other publications for a total of 40 years. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Florida. John is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association and Critics Association of Central Florida Send John a message at jdelia@acedmagazine.com
