Strangerland, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, tells the story of a family living in the rural Australian outback. Their “normal” life gets upturned when their two teenage children go missing, which leads to speculation about the family’s disturbing past.
The dramatic thriller stars Nicole Kidman (The Hours), Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love), Hugo Weaving (The Matrix), and newcomer Maddison Brown. In addition to Kidman and Weaving, Strangerland showcases upcoming Australian talent with director Kim Farrant as well as writers Michael Kinirons and Fiona Seres in their first feature screenplay.
Strangerland is the first film to feature Kidman’s real Australian accent in quite a while. Some of her early work (Dead Calm, anyone?) allowed for the Aussie actress’s native tongue, but the grand majority of her films have required either English or American accents—she even played a Brit in her film Australia.
Kidman dominates the trailer as it showcases her character’s powerful presence as a mother, a wife, and a woman desperately struggling against her desolate environment. Besides being trapped within her family’s past, she also seems to be caught between Fiennes and Weaving, forming a connection between the sensual natures of mother and daughter.
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