Beautiful landscape and a chance to make a complex and intriguing movie. Instead, the movie was a confusing, pretentious exercise in overacting. The movie never gives a clue what is the point and why should be we believe anyone or anything.Nicole Kidman plays a mother whose daughter has become wild and uncontrollable. Instead of behaving like a mature adult, she is promiscuous and walks through the town naked. Even nowadays, that will get you banned from a small town forever. Why was she bruised? The movie never explains. What happened to the daughter? No one knows. Maybe she got away from her family and became a successful millionaire. An Adult beats up the neighbor's kid, but the police chief does not arrest him. On what Planet would that happen? Is the police chief covering up his own role. He shreds the evidence that might indict the neighbor's kid. When does this take place? If it is 2015, once again, I am sure Australia has the equivalent of Amber Alerts. You bet that some local sheriff would not be running things. There would be Media and every agency in the Australian Government would be in town. I guess movies is the one place that reality can be suspended for the plot. What plot?! This movie was a mess. Was Nicole Kidman trying to win an Oscar? She certainly was overacting.

This film sets off with an interesting story and tone, enough to reel anyone in who could be so compelled to unravel what appears to be a small town mystery. But as the story picks up and we begin to learn more about the characters, the mystery doesn't seems to remain stuck in the first act, with very little discovered to deepen the plot. The sense you get though is "wait, its about to happen!", and you wait... and wait... until the very end... and then.... nothing. Zero pay off is the result. Characters basically accept the situation albeit with regrets, and credits roll. Very disappointed that the time investment in the long, slow-burning drama eventuated to nothing when it had u begging for answers. Beautiful cinematography and art direction though, and acting was great too, although I feel the characters were also expecting to build towards something of a more rewarding and mysterious conclusion as well.

A family finds their dull life in a rural outback town rocked after their two teenage children disappear into the desert, sparking disturbing rumors of their past. As far as acting goes Nicole Kidman, Joseph Fiennes and Hugo Weaving are really good unfortunately the script and the plot aren't and here is how the director explains the character of Catherine and it's characters in regular: "People also sexualize stress, grief, loneliness, anger, longing, fear… we deal with crisis in many different ways… and sex is just one of them that we address in "Strangerland." This movie has one of the most awkward sex scenes i have ever seen between Kidman and Fiennes that comes out very weird also the first time Rae (Weaving) we basically see him having sex with this woman and later Kidman tries to seduce both him and and this kid Burtie and although one of the kids does get found the other one we as an audience we never learn what happens if you see movies such as Prisoners or Taken about child kidnapping you will see how perfectly they work in here both parents are insane that in times remember that their kids were missing. Sure the acting, the pacing and the locations are fine but that can't save a troubled script with a plot and characters that make zero sense. I'll give Strangerland a 6.1/10

The story moves very slowly.The characters are irritating, but not in a way that gets us somewhere.The overall plot is not in any fashion fulfilling.Someone said that the cinematography and the acting were good.Whatever.There needs to be a story worth watching as well.This lacks that.Who knows. If you have some other motive that wanting an interesting story for watching this maybe you'll like it.I didn't.My recommendation: watch something else.