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.

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

I almost never review movies and I often like a tidy ending, but what intrigued me about this movie is that after scouring reviews, there were none I could find that touched on what I felt stood about about this storyline. Even a director-interview touched only on how different characters dealt with grief in the movie.Sure there was a lot of grief going around, but much more interesting was the element of a teenage female sociopath. The character of Lily went beyond simple promiscuity. She upended her former teacher's life. Was not only adept at seducing men at an early age, but also chronicled her conquests in her diary in an explicit way that clearly points to sociopathy.Parallels are drawn between her mother's need for sexual attention and manipulation with her own. The fact that she didn't take care of her brother and may have willingly abandoned him suggests something even more sinister. Particularly the haunting refrain of being touched in the dark. She gives us no reason to believe that she looks out for her younger brother, given that she will disappear into the box with him standing by helplessly. It is part of her power over him that she can do this without fear of reprisal from him. Ask how she manages to pull all this over on him and her parents?I came to the conclusion that she had abused her younger brother in some way, exerting her control over him in the darkness 'when no one can see.' Getting him to 'touch her' and do her bidding. Why else would a healthy boy not be able to sleep and instead wander aimlessly in the night? Why does she go after him, and why does she as the older, responsible one let it go so far as to allow him to almost meet his demise?Her father sensed it intuitively, which was why he feared for her early on and either reacted violently to protect her, or felt she deserved to be punished. Only a pretty screwed up girl would act out so extremely at such a young age. The father also recognized narcissistic tendencies in his wife. Perhaps the mother had a male relative who abused her in the past and there could have been a continuation of that with Lily as a child that was not overtly suggested.The mother's downward spiral toward the end also reinforced that notion as her daughter's disappearance reignited buried psychological trauma that plays out in a psychotic break for her which is witnessed by the townspeople. I felt the movie overall was well-acted by all involved and well-directed. Kudos to the independent film!

This film tells the story of a family that moves to a small town to escape from a dark past. Unfortunately their children goes missing, and in the search, it seems everyone has something to hide."Strangerland" depicts a mother who is in much distraught over the disappearance of her children. Nicole Kidman is very convincing as a very distressed mother, I empathise with her and feel so sorry for her pain and loss. The father, on the other hand, has a different approach to the circumstances, creating a stark contrast. The hunt for the missing children is long and less than fruitful, engaging me and making me hope for something good would happen soon. I think it's a heavy film with a heartbreaking and depressing story.