Body trouble

>> Jindabyne is a perfectly disturbing
adaptation of a Raymond Carver story

by MATTHEW HAYS

There’s a degree of chutzpah involved whenever a filmmaker treads on territory that’s already been covered by Robert Altman. In 1993, the late auteur took on the stories of celebrated novelist Raymond Carver and made what is arguably one of his very best films, Short Cuts.

One of the most memorable sub-plots in that film was based on “So Much Water, So Close to Home,” a short story about several men on a fishing trip who discover the corpse of a dead woman in a remote river. Rather than head back, they decide that no harm will be done if they continue to fish and simply tell the authorities when they head back a day later, as planned. Upon their return, they find that their wives are completely shocked by their delayed action: how could they leave this corpse and continue fishing? Weren’t they consumed by horror and grief over the dead body?

With Jindabyne, director Ray Lawrence (Bliss, Lantana) and screenwriter Beatrix Christian have returned to this story and reset it in their native Australia. Gabriel Byrne plays a retired race car driver, now slumming it as an auto mechanic in a dingy small-town garage. His wife, played with typical, unnerving conviction by Laura Linney, is a not-entirely-happy mom to their six-year-old son, who seems to have his own emotional problems.

Lawrence and Christian have upped the ante here in a fascinating way. Not only is the corpse that the men come across that of a woman, but an aboriginal woman. Thus the film introduces the heated issue of race along with gender into the mix. The dynamics of each male-female relationship is touched upon, but Linney’s moral outrage at her husband’s inaction is Jindabyne’s centrepiece.

Jindabyne is a particularly satisfying film because it really doesn’t take us down a familiar path. As I watched it, I was never quite clear on where it was going to head next—and how often can we say this experience hits us when we see a movie? And Linney is just perfect—her authority undermined by a past emotional breakdown, she’s as trapped by the men’s actions as they are. It all makes Jindabyne a perfectly disturbing potboiler.

Jindabyne opens this Friday, June 15

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