Why Nicole Kidman’s well-crafted performance in Strangerland is wasted

REVIEW: In Strangerland, all the building blocks are seemingly in place for a demanding psychological drama of some quality.

Kidman’s well-crafted act is wasted

Strangerland (MA15+)

Director: Kim Farrant (feature debut)

Starring: Nicole Kidman, Joseph Fiennes, Hugo Weaving, Maddison Brown.

Rating: **

Seek, and ye won’t find

In Strangerland, all the building blocks are seemingly in place for a demanding psychological drama of some quality.

A compelling setting, stunning cinematography, and fair-to-fine performances do leave a mark when considered in isolation.

And yet, the more you try to immerse yourself in Strangerland, the less it fails to stand up to scrutiny.

Nicole Kidman (in good form here) and Joseph Fiennes (bit of a passenger) star as Catherine and Matthew, a troubled couple whose teenage children (Maddison Brown and Nicholas Hamilton) disappeared without trace shortly after the family relocated to the outback.

Joseph Fiennes and Nicole Kidman in a scene from the movie Strangerland.

While a police investigation led by a rumpled local detective (Hugo Weaving) slowly and quite unsurely picks up pace, director Kim Farrant sidetracks her audience with a grinding series of revelations concerning the fretting parents.

The real reason why they chose to move to such an out-of-the-way abode is of paramount importance here, as is Catherine’s mercurial sense of her own sexuality, and Matthew’s urge to drink and keep on drinking.

In fact, the more that Strangerland pieces together the broken backstories of its characters, the less we are asked to worry about what has become of the vanished kids.

Together on set ... Nicole Kidman and Joseph Fiennes

An attempt is made in the final act to rectify this imbalance, but by then, it is far too late.

The real shame of it all is that a well-crafted performance from the much-maligned Kidman has been close to wasted here. Here’s hoping she continues to build on her strong work here at the very least.

Overall, Strangerland tries too hard to maintain a mystique that only makes an already oblique screenplay all the more impenetrable.

If you really must, be both very forgiving and very patient.

Originally published as Why Nicole Kidman’s well-crafted performance in Strangerland is wasted