#1 ·
Let me just drop the bottom line right at the top, because I can already tell this is going to be a massive wall of text that nobody actually wants to wade through. Bottom line: this movie is absolutely stunning, easily the most important thing I've watched in the last year.
The opening sets the stage with what looks like a brutal murder, a grim introduction to a pretty heavy world. Not long after, we find out an eleven-year-old girl from one family was brutally killed, and honestly, for me, there is nothing more gut-wrenching in cinema than the death of a child—you can do all sorts of things, but leave the kids out of it. Relationships are a mess; husbands cheat, wives walk away, marriages are rotting from the inside, and those that seem stable are probably just an illusion. The state of the world isn't looking great here either; it feels like even a place like Australia, which used to feel like the last bastion of Western civilization, is starting to look more and more like Los Angeles. If you’re looking for a warm hug or some comfort, this movie definitely isn't going to give it to you. The way it dissects relationships and marriages is almost Bergman-esque—cold, clinical, and totally unapologetic. But, lo and behold, despite all that darkness, the film isn't just a detached observer; it actually tries to maintain some kind of balance and offer a moral compass.
People love to talk about plot twists, and yeah, this is definitely a candidate for a major one. And thank God it is. Everything that looked absolutely horrific at the start turns out not to be quite as devastating as it seemed, suggesting that maybe there's still some hope left in this world.
To me, I experienced Lathan primarily as the ultimate cinematic exploration of Trust. Everything you ever wanted to know about the essence of trust—having faith in people, whether it's those closest to you or humanity in general—is laid out here through the intersecting lives of three or four different families.
Quotes are really the best way to illustrate this. There's this psychiatrist promoting her book about the murder of her daughter who says:
- We don't know what to feel anymore. We don't even know what's right or wrong. It's the confused cry of the modern age. We ask ourselves... What can we believe in? Who can we trust? Politicians? Good luck with that. Priests? You'd be surprised how many patients come to me who used to have faith in priests. It shouldn't be this way, but it is. So who then? Parents? Home is a sanctuary for a privileged few. For most, it's a battlefield. It shouldn't be, but it is. Love? Can we believe in love? Can we feel secure in love? Loving someone means you have to relinquish power, doesn't it? It's a mutual surrender. But how do you achieve that? Through trust. Trust is as vital to human connection as breathing is to life, and just as elusive.
And that psychiatrist, who has basically diagnosed the core crisis of our era, is failing because of a total lack of trust. First, a lack of trust in the person she lives with, and then a lack of trust in the entire world she inhabits.
Even a seemingly perfect family, like the cop's—she's beautiful, smart, loyal, has two sons, they're well-off—they're dealing with serious crises too. The cop cheats on his wife because he feels numb, because he's lost the ability to feel anything beyond the marriage routine. His wife doesn't talk to him about it; she talks to her psychiatrist. Here is their dialogue:
- Did you tell him you aren't happy?
- I thought I didn't need to.
- That depends on what kind of actress you are.
- I think I'm a pretty good one.
- What kind of marriage would you want?
– Something passionate, challenging, and honest.
- It isn't honest?
- Emotionally, it isn't... And I want more, so much more than that...
Second scene:
- It's not even about whether he might have slept with someone else. It's that he might not tell me. That would be the betrayal.
But true trust is best seen in the scene where the wife of a woman suspected of disappearing tells her friend that her husband is innocent. When the antagonist asks her how she knows, she answers with total conviction: "He told me so!" In a real relationship between two people, there is no room for doubt; you believe in what no one else believes. And you end up being right. That is the number one family in the film that managed to keep their trust intact.
In a wounded, decaying relationship like the one between the psychiatrist and her husband, you can't even trust what should be obvious and certain. Everything is called into question. Everything becomes a reason for suspicion. Even a patient or a random brush against a stranger is treated as an attack on one's character. That is the second family, where everything falls apart due to the loss of trust.
The third family is easily the most fascinating part of this whole thing. You’ve got this police officer whose marriage went through the absolute ringer—total betrayal, crushing regret, and then the messy process of trying to clean up the wreckage. It kind of hints at the idea that even after a massive blowout like infidelity, things might actually be salvageable if you handle it the right way. This guy actually had the guts to stand there in front of his wife, own up to the cheating, and basically put his neck on the chopping block, leaving her decision entirely up to her. He’d heard on some tape that she would have left him if he’d cheated, but he wanted to be as honest as humanly possible, trying to rebuild a sense of basic, stripped-down trust. I guess you could say a painful truth is better for trust than a comfortable lie or playing games. It’s a philosophy common sense might tell you to avoid, but it’s incredibly moral, and honestly, it makes you feel like redemption is actually on the table.
Then you’ve got the fourth family, where the husband comes back to his wife after an affair with another man that she didn't even know about. It gives you the full spectrum of scenarios to chew on, making you wonder if that's somehow better or worse than the situation where everything was confessed and sincerely repented for.
At the end of the day, here’s how I read this movie: Trust is like a bridge—it's the structure you stand on while you're out there reaching for other people. As long as you believe in that imaginary bridge, you can walk on it, jump on it, or sprint across to reach someone else. But the second you start doubting, the second that trust in humanity starts to crumble, the bridge just vanishes. Then you either plummet straight into the abyss (which is literally what happens to the psychiatrist in the film) or you're just left standing there, all alone and miserable, on your side of the shore.
Even if all this heavy lifting regarding the concept of Trust feels a bit much for some people, they'll still find plenty to sink their teeth into in what is, ultimately, a gripping who-done-it crime story.
The opening sets the stage with what looks like a brutal murder, a grim introduction to a pretty heavy world. Not long after, we find out an eleven-year-old girl from one family was brutally killed, and honestly, for me, there is nothing more gut-wrenching in cinema than the death of a child—you can do all sorts of things, but leave the kids out of it. Relationships are a mess; husbands cheat, wives walk away, marriages are rotting from the inside, and those that seem stable are probably just an illusion. The state of the world isn't looking great here either; it feels like even a place like Australia, which used to feel like the last bastion of Western civilization, is starting to look more and more like Los Angeles. If you’re looking for a warm hug or some comfort, this movie definitely isn't going to give it to you. The way it dissects relationships and marriages is almost Bergman-esque—cold, clinical, and totally unapologetic. But, lo and behold, despite all that darkness, the film isn't just a detached observer; it actually tries to maintain some kind of balance and offer a moral compass.
People love to talk about plot twists, and yeah, this is definitely a candidate for a major one. And thank God it is. Everything that looked absolutely horrific at the start turns out not to be quite as devastating as it seemed, suggesting that maybe there's still some hope left in this world.
To me, I experienced Lathan primarily as the ultimate cinematic exploration of Trust. Everything you ever wanted to know about the essence of trust—having faith in people, whether it's those closest to you or humanity in general—is laid out here through the intersecting lives of three or four different families.
Quotes are really the best way to illustrate this. There's this psychiatrist promoting her book about the murder of her daughter who says:
- We don't know what to feel anymore. We don't even know what's right or wrong. It's the confused cry of the modern age. We ask ourselves... What can we believe in? Who can we trust? Politicians? Good luck with that. Priests? You'd be surprised how many patients come to me who used to have faith in priests. It shouldn't be this way, but it is. So who then? Parents? Home is a sanctuary for a privileged few. For most, it's a battlefield. It shouldn't be, but it is. Love? Can we believe in love? Can we feel secure in love? Loving someone means you have to relinquish power, doesn't it? It's a mutual surrender. But how do you achieve that? Through trust. Trust is as vital to human connection as breathing is to life, and just as elusive.
And that psychiatrist, who has basically diagnosed the core crisis of our era, is failing because of a total lack of trust. First, a lack of trust in the person she lives with, and then a lack of trust in the entire world she inhabits.
Even a seemingly perfect family, like the cop's—she's beautiful, smart, loyal, has two sons, they're well-off—they're dealing with serious crises too. The cop cheats on his wife because he feels numb, because he's lost the ability to feel anything beyond the marriage routine. His wife doesn't talk to him about it; she talks to her psychiatrist. Here is their dialogue:
- Did you tell him you aren't happy?
- I thought I didn't need to.
- That depends on what kind of actress you are.
- I think I'm a pretty good one.
- What kind of marriage would you want?
– Something passionate, challenging, and honest.
- It isn't honest?
- Emotionally, it isn't... And I want more, so much more than that...
Second scene:
- It's not even about whether he might have slept with someone else. It's that he might not tell me. That would be the betrayal.
But true trust is best seen in the scene where the wife of a woman suspected of disappearing tells her friend that her husband is innocent. When the antagonist asks her how she knows, she answers with total conviction: "He told me so!" In a real relationship between two people, there is no room for doubt; you believe in what no one else believes. And you end up being right. That is the number one family in the film that managed to keep their trust intact.
In a wounded, decaying relationship like the one between the psychiatrist and her husband, you can't even trust what should be obvious and certain. Everything is called into question. Everything becomes a reason for suspicion. Even a patient or a random brush against a stranger is treated as an attack on one's character. That is the second family, where everything falls apart due to the loss of trust.
The third family is easily the most fascinating part of this whole thing. You’ve got this police officer whose marriage went through the absolute ringer—total betrayal, crushing regret, and then the messy process of trying to clean up the wreckage. It kind of hints at the idea that even after a massive blowout like infidelity, things might actually be salvageable if you handle it the right way. This guy actually had the guts to stand there in front of his wife, own up to the cheating, and basically put his neck on the chopping block, leaving her decision entirely up to her. He’d heard on some tape that she would have left him if he’d cheated, but he wanted to be as honest as humanly possible, trying to rebuild a sense of basic, stripped-down trust. I guess you could say a painful truth is better for trust than a comfortable lie or playing games. It’s a philosophy common sense might tell you to avoid, but it’s incredibly moral, and honestly, it makes you feel like redemption is actually on the table.
Then you’ve got the fourth family, where the husband comes back to his wife after an affair with another man that she didn't even know about. It gives you the full spectrum of scenarios to chew on, making you wonder if that's somehow better or worse than the situation where everything was confessed and sincerely repented for.
At the end of the day, here’s how I read this movie: Trust is like a bridge—it's the structure you stand on while you're out there reaching for other people. As long as you believe in that imaginary bridge, you can walk on it, jump on it, or sprint across to reach someone else. But the second you start doubting, the second that trust in humanity starts to crumble, the bridge just vanishes. Then you either plummet straight into the abyss (which is literally what happens to the psychiatrist in the film) or you're just left standing there, all alone and miserable, on your side of the shore.
Even if all this heavy lifting regarding the concept of Trust feels a bit much for some people, they'll still find plenty to sink their teeth into in what is, ultimately, a gripping who-done-it crime story.