The sign on the way into the quiet, semi-rural town of Jindabyne reads "a tidy town." In director Ray Lawrence's taut, methodical drama, it's anything but -- adapted by Beatrix Christian from the Raymond Carver short story "So Much Water Close to Home" (and transplanted to Australia), this gripping film follows Lawrence's acclaimed 2001 film Lantana, a work which, upon closer inspection, shares a few thematic interests with the riveting Jindabyne.

The peaceful, idyllic calm of a fishing trip attended by Stewart (Gabriel Byrne), Carl (John Howard), Billy (Simon Stone) and Rocco (Stelios Yiakmis) is shattered by the discovery of a young woman's corpse floating in the river. Aware that they are miles from help, the four men elect to leave the body where they found it, continuing on as though nothing has happened.

When they return home and the dead woman's body is front-page news, their wives are stunned at their husbands' inaction, particularly Stewart's already off-balance wife, Claire (Laura Linney). What follows is a slow, steady cracking of a fragile facade, the gradual dissolution of a strained marriage that was already hanging by a thread. While Carver's slim short story is potent in its own right, Lawrence and Christian expand the tale to incorporate tensions and settings specific to Australia, giving the film a pungent flavor that sets it apart from other Carver adaptations, such as Robert Altman's Short Cuts.

Lyrical in its beauty, stocked with great performances and assured in its storytelling, Jindabyne is an elliptical thriller that's set to a slow boil, gradually building to a powerful, ambiguous finale that will slip under your skin and stay there.

The Video:

The 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer has a definite texture to it, an almost palpable graininess that doesn't mar the image so much as it creates a distinct mood. Much of Jindabyne transpires in the rugged Australian countryside so the visual treatment fits. Aside from the slightly grainy look, the colors and sharpness are spot-on, with no glaring defects.

Plenty atmospheric, the Dolby Digital 5.1 track is subtly powerful, rendering the dialogue clearly with no drop-out or distortion, but also allowing the natural sounds and Paul Kelly and Dan Luscombe's moody score to filter in. Optional French and Spanish subtitles are available.

The supplements are scarce -- a trio of deleted scenes, playable (in rough-looking anamorphic widescreen) separately or all together for an aggregate of six minutes, 18 seconds; "Jindabyne: The Process," a 30 minute, 22 second fullscreen making-of featurette and trailers for The Jane Austen Book Club, My Kid Could Paint That, Sleuth, Reign Over Me, Angel-A, Vitus, Paprika, Moliere, Interview, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, First Snow and Closure is all she wrote.

Lyrical in its beauty, stocked with great performances and assured in its storytelling, Jindabyne is an elliptical thriller that's set to a slow boil, gradually building to a powerful, ambiguous finale that will slip under your skin and stay there. Recommended.