Jindabyne

In small-town Australia, mechanic Byrne and his group of fishing buddies find the murdered body of a young Aboriginal woman, but, being so remote, decide to continue with their trip rather than alert the authorities immediately, with the resulting furore splitting families (Byrne and wife Linney are already having problems) and entire communities. Following on from his stunning Lantana, director Lawrence again attempts to craft a slow burning meditation on relationships and grief, this time based on a Raymond Carver short story that was also used in Short Cuts. But by giving us so many selfish, often stupid, sometimes borderline subnormal characters, and far too many dead-end subplots, we're left with an overplayed mess that's nowhere near as involving or profound as it thinks it is. Quite what actors of the calibre of Byrne and Linney are doing in something this soapy is probably the biggest mystery of all. [Paul Greenwood]