JindabyneMovie Reviews

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Avg. Critic Score: 65 out of 100 Generally favorable reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
15 Iffy for 15+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 80
    The Hollywood Reporter |

    The same organic characterizations that marked Lawrence's acclaimed 2001 film "Lantana" will attract fans of strong adult drama. Read full review

  • 80
    Los Angeles Times | Kenneth Turan

    Jindabyne's strength and power come from a number of factors: its origin, its current landscape and the unusual way its writer-director, Ray Lawrence, has chosen to work. Read full review

  • 75
    Entertainment Weekly | Lisa Schwarzbaum

    Jindabyne -- named for the lakeside town in which the troubles spill -- can't contain all that the filmmakers want to throw in. Best to keep glued to the taut performance by Laura Linney. Read full review

  • 70
    The New York Times | A.O. Scott

    The real flaw is that the movie's best features -- the aching clarity of its central performances -- threaten to be lost in a wilderness of metaphor and mystification. Read full review

  • 70
    Variety | Robert Koehler

    Never obtains the full impact of its potentially powerful inner core. Read full review

  • 63
    Boston Globe | Ty Burr

    Where it works best is in the domestic dance of death between a husband and a wife. Linney flutters with increasingly panicky intelligence throughout the film, while Byrne sinks further into his own bulk. Read full review

  • 50
    Washington Post | Desson Thomson

    Sometimes, the sincerest form of tribute is inferiority. Watching the Australian film Jindabyne, one soon embraces the conclusion: Robert Altman did this work better. And with fewer brush strokes. Read full review

  • 50
    Wall Street Journal | Joe Morgenstern

    Jindabyne started with a bad idea and the finished film doesn't do well by it. Read full review

  • 50
    USA Today | Claudia Puig

    Has some strong acting. But largely because of its glacial pacing, the story ends up feeling too detached to move us as it should. Read full review

  • 50
    San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalle

    Jindabyne suffers from too many extraneous elements and from a story that doesn't land with enough force or purpose. Read full review

View more reviews for Jindabyne on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 15+ Intense relationship drama for adults only.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this short story-based film is a bleak study of human cruelty in the form of emotional sabotage and actual murder. There are many violent episodes -- from the opening sequence in which a serial killer stalks his prey to a scene in which two children kill a pet to an emotionally jarring exchange in which a husband and wife fight each other with words and fists. Racism also rears its nasty head, and there are disturbing close-ups of a murdered woman. Characters drink, smoke, and swear.
  • Families can talk about how the media can vilify or anoint someone because of their choices. In some cases -- like the one presented in this movie, in which four men ignore a dead body until their vacation is done -- is it justified? If so, why? Does the film explain why the men decide to do what they did? Does it make sense? Is the reaction they get from their families understandable or outrageous? How do such moments bring some people closer and tear others apart?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Disturbing moments include a child nearly causing a playmate to drown; physical abuse between spouses (a man and woman attack each other verbally and with their arms and fists in a discomfortingly realistic fight); crimes such as tampering with evidence; racial conflict.
What to watch for
  • violence false5 Violence: Lots of it, and in all forms -- from verbal abuse to outright murder. A serial killer hunts down women and unceremoniously dumps a partially naked body into a lake. Also, children kill a pet, intending to use it for sacrifice. A man punches his pal on the nose and breaks it. One of the children keeps a dead bird that she presumably also killed.
  • sex false3 Sex: A husband and wife have sex (though there's no nudity). Some talk of sex. A partially naked corpse.
  • language false3 Language: Occasional use of everything from "damn" to "holy s--t" to "f--k."
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Some product placement in the gas station, but nothing easily identifiable.
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Lots of alcohol. The four men guzzle beer on their fishing trip and at a party beforehand. Some shots of characters smoking.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

Looking for more reviews? Movies.com Critics Say:

Dave White

3.0

Dave White Profile See Dave White's Profile

… kind of a slog … Read full review See Dave White's on MOVIENAME on Movies.com

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