Lawrence reemerges with Jindabyne

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The enigmatic director Ray Lawrence will be returning to American screens next spring with the film Jindabyne . Sony Pictures Classics has picked up the rights to the film, which is already a box office hit in Australia. Laura Linney and Gabriel Byrne star in the film, about a group of men who find a dead Aboriginal girl while on a fishing trip but continue their trip as scheduled. Byrne plays one of the fishermen, Linney plays his deservedly furious wife. Jindabyne will make its North American premiere at the Toronto Film Festival.

Jindabyne will be only Lawrence’s third feature film in twenty years. He made his directorial debut with Bliss in 1985. That film was nominated for the Golden Palm at Cannes. He made his sophomore effort, Lantana , in 2001, sixteen years after Bliss. That film, which starred fellow native Australian Anthony LaPaglia, had a similar theme as Jindabyne: the strength of married couples put to the test in the face of an unanswered murder.

Jindabyne was screen-written by Beatrix Christian, who based it on a short story by the great (Great) Raymond Carver called “So Much Water So Close To Home.” Hmm, why does that sound familiar? Come on film fanatics! Why does this whole project sound really, really familiar? If you thought “Robert Altman’s Short Cuts,” well then, you win. That Carver story was also adapted, alongside other Carver shorts, and puzzled together to form Short Cuts, which, oddly enough, is often mentioned as a major inspiration to Lantana. Film, it’s cyclical.