Lantana (2001)

Who knew Anthony LaPaglia was Australian? Not me. And his accent wavers so much in the film that it doesn't offer certain evidence either.

This one is a list movie. I'm not sure why it's on the list. Maybe they just needed to represent the continent somehow. It begins with a long-ish shot looking through a jungle of lantana plants in which we see a dead female body. We never find out who this woman is. Of the two characters who die in the film, one dies and is found before the film's present and the other drowns--neither ends up in lantana bushes.

It's about four married couples--none of their marriages really function--whose lives intersect, sort of. LaPaglia is a police officer, Leon, who is married to Sonja but cheats on her with Jane even though he claims to still love his wife. Jane is separated from her husband Pete and she's a bit of a nuisance, spying on her neighbors and whatnot. Pete is friends with her neighbor Nik who is married to Paula (with three or four kids) and who is seen tossing a shoe in the lantana jungle across the street from his house by Jane (who then calls the police, Leon). Meanwhile, Sonja (Leon's wife) is secretly seeing psychiatrist Valerie (Barbara Hershey--whose American accent in the sea of Australian accents is never explained) whose daughter was murdered (before the movie's present) and who is married to John (Geoffery Rush). Their marriage is in shambles thanks to the murder and she thinks he's seeing a man on the side.

It's not very interesting and it's not even as convoluted as all of that sounds. And it's two hours long.