Profound waste of time

What? I cannot even believe Nicole Kidman would takeon this role...very bad story line...

Good acting and cinematography but falls into the trap of other arty Australian movies of an inconclusive and unsatisfying ending. Feel I wasted 2 hours.

I dont get all the negative reviews, beautiful cinematography good acting and a decent story. I guess it's the ambiguous ending that upsets.

This was horrible. Can't believe Kidman took this role.

From the perspective of plot, it's hard not to compare Strangerland to Peter Weir's classic Picnic at Hanging Rock. Both are set in rural Australia. Both take place in a hostile terrain. Both involve the mysterious disappearance of children, seemingly consumed by the environment. The similarities, however, end there. In Strangerland, the first half hour or so consists of the introduction of the Parker family, new arrivals in a remote desert town. Instead of just laying out the facts, it resorts to constant teasers about their past transgressions, the intent being to build suspense. It only builds aggravation. Once the disappearances take place, both parents are revealed to be odious human beings. Instead of trying to relate to them and feel their unimaginable suffering, you begin to realize that the children are probably better off where they are – dead or alive. On the bright side, the cinematography is outstanding, but it's not enough to compensate for the considerable shortcomings.

Strangerland is relentlessly morose, and it quickly becomes tiresome. It's a story of a family that has relocated to a seedy, bleak town in the Australian Outback to escape a sex scandal in their previous town involving their teenage daughter and a teacher. The town looks like something from an old western, even though the story takes place in present day. The parents, Catherine and Matthew Parker (Nicole Kidman and Joseph Fiennes), have their hands full with their sullen prepubescent son Tom (Nicholas Hamilton) and their moody and annoying 15 year old daughter Lilly (Maddison Brown). On top of that, there is a unexplained strain on their relationship that keeps them sleeping separately. Their verbal exchanges are terse and full of resentful subtexts. Not a happy family, and not a happy movie. It nearly collapses under the weight of its own angst. The plot involves the kids disappearing in the middle of the night after a nasty dust storm. Lilly has been sexually involved with some of the young local males, and maybe she was kidnaped, but that doesn't explain why Tom is gone, too. Lilly is the kind of kid you would like to slap. She's disrespectful and arrogant, and she spends her free time writing awful poetry (which we are unfortunately subjected to in voice-overs). Tom is angry and sullen. If I were their parent, I'd be glad they disappeared. The Parkers enlist the help of the local lawman Rae (Hugo Weaving, playing the closest thing to a likeable character in the entire film). But the procedural aspect of the search is constantly overshadowed by the focus on the miseries of all the characters. Bad marriage, depression, regret, repressed anger….I kept patiently enduring all of the melodrama just to find out what happened to the kids. By the halfway point, I was getting restless---and the movie is a full two hours. We eventually discover that Lilly has apparently inherited her promiscuity from her mother, who ends up trying to seduce one of Lilly's boyfriends---while her daughter is missing?!! I guess that explains the marital problems. And I'm sad to say, things get even more absurd. As to the denouement: There is none. Sorry for anybody who expected one. But at least we spent two hours feeling dismal.

A very depressing, but well acted slow paced movie.

Great movie. An Acting Master Class. Rotten Tomatoes has no class.

‘Strangerland' has what it needs to cause linger but it's not in a way through interest necessarily— but because the final conclusion to the film is really the main thing it has going for it. 4.2/10, C-

The built up mystery doesnt mean a thing when the credits show up. Neither does the story show how relationships now stand imprved

The Australian inland is vast and ferociously beautiful. Evidence to fertile times now long past. The low flat horizons, the sun, glowing like a sustained nuclear explosion, rising each morning and bathing the cracking rocks and dry creak beds with a pitiless light is a perfect setting for this story of personal and marital discontent in a small family in a small Outback town. "Strangerland" is a fragmentary movie that follows the unexplained remoteness of a boy and his older sister. Both are under 15 when they leave home late one night and do not return. The sinister elements of some sort of abuse lurks in the shadows but is never tempered into the light. But it is no clearer once the film's focus shifts to the parents. The hyper-sexuality, problematic in the Daughter, has an ominous echo in her Mother. Overt sexuality in women can still be a powerful driver of a story and that seems to be the essence of "Strangerland". At the end of the movie, after all its alarming suggestions and painfully beautiful photography of our arid and cruel land, I was left uncertain and unsure of what I had just been party to and what I thought had happened. I am no stranger to the incomplete ending. I don't might things left unsaid or resolutions that are yet to evolve, but.............

Family drama ai confini del mondo, il cast ottimo aiuta ad immedesimarsi, specialmente la Kidman, ottima interprete di un personaggio poco credibile. Nel complesso il film passa da momenti di suspance molto interessanti a conversazioni più piatte e poco credibili. Finale dolce amaro che ho apprezzato.

Appalling story, very poor plot development, doesn't even give you a satisfying ending. Absolute waste of time

I dont know whats the goal of this film?

Lacks a plot. A waste of time.

I found this film to be quite engaging. I was disappointed that all the buildup as to where the kids were was kind of a huge let down. There wasn't ever really a thematic climax that left you reeling, it all kind of slowly fizzles out in the end. I think the writers were trying to show that this story wasn't about lily and her brother, it was about how their parents cope with the loss. The acting by Nicole Kidman was great and at times, disturbingly sad. This film had lots of potential with a great cast, beautiful scenery, and a story line that would have been super if they had just changed the ending.

Horrible movie! Time I cant get back in my life. Really poor story line with no ending leaves you confused through the entire thing.

Kidman delivering her normal wooden impersonation of an actor. Apart from The Others, she still hasn't made a better movie than BMX Bandits. 3.5 star movie with a decent actress in the lead role

A story of a dysfunctional family, Australian style. Not the best movie ever made, but it has enough to hold your attention all the way through. Great Australian scenery, and great performances by some relatively unknown actors, including some great indigenous tallent.