control, will resonate with this film. Whether or not you have acted out in the ways her characters express their pain, you cannot help but feel the deep truth of these expressions. Weaving delivers some beautiful moments, Fiennes' repression and rage is palpable, and the supporting cast is fantastic. The stand out is Meyne Ywatt, the young aboriginal actor who plays Bertie, who is so good he lights up the screen. Resolution, when it comes, is of the real life kind rather than the Hollywood kind. Beautiful cinematography and breathtaking Aussie desert landscape provide a gorgeous foil to the human drama. This is not a film that leaves you feeling comfortable, but it will leave you feeling, and feeling deeply. I guarantee you will be thinking about it and talking about it for days, or even weeks, after. I recommend seeing it twice; on the second viewing the nuances and subtleties really get a chance to land, and the characters' behaviours take on new depth and clarity. Farrant has delivered a thought provoking, raw journey into the subterranean currants of being human, in all its gritty beauty.

outback. View the film with an open, patient mind and this slow-burning drama will certainly leave it's mark on you.

in our face, it has no heroes, and it offers no answers to that question except perhaps "consumer discretion catastrophically absent".

woman. Joseph Fiennes has less to work with, but is also strong in his tightly-wound role.The cinematography of the outback is both beautiful and bleak and aids the story tremendously in providing the vast, unforgiving backdrop, in a literal sense, for the missing children and, more figuratively, for the emotional terrain of the parents.This movie is gritty, real, and unsparing. There is, however, a surprising, underlying tenderness at its core. Uneasy and unpleasant in many regards, but absolutely compelling and worth your while.

powerful, plausible and mature, not to say suspenseful, gripping, sinuous and visceral. Debut director Kim Farrant has produced a treat; a powerfully atmospheric classic. She has honoured these characters' important stories superbly and created sumptuous cinema.

and they act certain ways for a number of reasons that we just won't know on the getgo. In the beginning of the film, you'll probably find yourself annoyed with a lot of characters, but as you learn more about them and realize that there's more to them than what you first saw, you kind of feel bad for judging them. My only small nitpicks about this film is that some scenes I wish they had long static shots of the characters, like in Shame if you ever saw that film, because it would've fit better than cutting between the faces of the people, but other than that, this is a well made film. Don't go into this film with any "pre-judgements", because it's likely not correct. All that I can say is this is not an action packed film. It's not really a thriller. It's not a fantastical plot. It's slow and steady and real.

grips, leaves you guessing, grips again, then has an ending that leaves you unsure of the story and if it even made sense. The Actors Performances really make this film.

me be an older teenager. And even though she isn't in the majority of the movie, it is entirely about her. Lilly, you later find out, is merely 15 but she looks and acts much older. This goes for the majority of today's young females. She has, at 15, already discovered the power of her sexuality, but she isn't quite in control of it like she may think. She has had an affair with a married school teacher and many other boys in town. She seems to be trying to fill a void within herself with sex. This same thing can also be said for many young teenagers today. The movie explores different reasons why she may have a void to fill. Unhappily married parents who are sexually distant and estranged from each other. They sleep in separate beds. Maybe she just doesn't have a good example of what a healthy sex life or relationship should look like? Possible molestation. The dad seems weirdly controlling over her. The brother seems a little off as well as the rest of the family. Maybe she's lashing out due to over controlling parents, or maybe they have given her too much freedom with letting her dress the way she does and run around. I think that the writer doesn't want you to be able to rule out any possibilities. I think they want to leave different options open so that the movie speaks to who ever it may need to speak to. It's trying to reach you as a parent of a young female or reach you the young female yourself.The whole movie feel bleak, hopeless, sexually awkward, and desperate. I imagine they want you to feel how young girls like "Lilly" feel while struggling with these issues. I feel that it does extremely well at this. This definitely wasn't a "feel good" movie. When the mother "Nichole Kidman" starts to fall apart she starts acting like her daughter. These awkward sexual encounters and sexual desperation of needing to feel loved and taken care of, I feel, are a way for us to glimpse into her daughter's life without her daughter even ever being on set. I also feel that the diary Lilly leaves behind helps us get some insight into the girl as well. Not only do you not know why exactly Lilly acts the way she does, you also do not find out what happened to Lilly. You know she left at night and got into a car. There were suspicious phone calls calling her a whore and dreamy flashes of her being gagged and sexual images. But nothing is ever concluded.I think things are left open so you can choose whichever path you would like to an extent in this movie. Why Lilly is acting out is your choice to make. Was it molestation? Where her parents too strict and overbearing? Or where they not strict enough by letting her wear the clothes she wore? Did she not have a healthy example of what a relationship should look like? What happened to her is also up to you. Did she run away because she felt like she was "in a prison" as her diary expressed? Or did some evil doer take note of her much too skimpy clothes and kidnap her? The movie doesn't tell you a lot, but by doing this, it says soo much. And it leaves openings for you to connect with it however you may need to. It says so much about today's young females. About their sexuality. About the things that may be steering them in the wrong direction and about how tragic these feelings really are to these girls. How lost, and empty they really feel.