Lantana
Rating = B+
This is a really good movie. Perhaps, one day
in retrospect, I will raise my rating to an A-. My wife pointed out to me
the — correct, I'm sure — metaphor of the ubiquitous, tangled lantana plant of
the title and the ubiquitous entanglements of human relationships, illustrated
by the characters in the movie.
On the one hand, this appears to be a movie about a crime. On the
other hand, that's just a thread that superficially brings all these
characters explicit awareness of each other in addition the direct,
indirect, and doubly indirect relationships they already had. The men
are unhappy, ignoring it, and drifting. The women are unhappy and
trying to do something about it, but nothing that really helps very
much. Nearly everyone is “seeking love in all the wrong places.”
After the jolts resulting from the crime, everyone appears to be
settling back into a new, slightly different, status quo; and we are
not sure if things will really get better, or if it will be back to
“lives of quiet desperation” — for some of the characters, clearly
things won't change much, and not at all for the better.
[2002-01-26]