Lake Mungo

 3/4

Starring: Rosie Traynor, David Pledger, Martin Sharpe, Talia Zucker, Steve Jodrell

Rated R for A Scene of Sexuality, and Brief Gruesome Images

"Lake Mungo" is a fake documentary, and it's executed so well that, save for some brief opening credits, you'd swear it was real.  It has everything you'd think, including talking heads with names under the people who are speaking, "archive" footage and news reports.  This isn't a found footage film but rather a traditional TV documentary with actors and a screenplay.  The way that writer/director Joel Anderson chooses to tell the story keeps it afloat even when the narrative takes on water.

The Palmers are your average Australian family.  June (Traynor) and Russell (Pledger) head the family and are raising their two kids, aloof Mathew (Sharpe) and popular Alice (Zucker).  One day on vacation at a dam, the kids go swimming.  Mathew returns when he gets cold, but Alice disappears.  Later that evening her body is recovered from the water.  The family of four is now a family of three.  Just as they are trying to adjust to this new development, strange things start happening.

"Lake Mungo" is less a horror movie and more a tale of grief and how people react when the unthinkable happens.  There are some spooky moments to tell, but the supernatural elements are minimal and are by far the least successful aspect of the film.  Instead, the film is more concerned with trying to answer the questions that inevitably arise in the survivors after someone has died.  What happened that "fateful" night?  Why did they act that way?  Hindsight is 20/20, and especially when death is sudden and unexpected, the mysteries of a person's life take on the urgency of a thriller.  No matter how mundane the question is.

Anderson elected to cast minor players in his film, and that enhances the film's effectiveness.  We see them as ordinary people rather than movie stars.  They all do solid jobs, although perhaps the director's intentionally bland shooting style limits the amount of intimacy we feel with the Palmers and their friends.  That said, the large cast and variety of people who participate as "interviewees" gives it a strong sense of legitimacy.

If there is a problem with the movie, it's the narrative.  The first act is by far the strongest, but Anderson pushes the believability fact past its breaking point.  The contrivance can no longer be overlooked, and I could no longer buy into the story as fully as I did.  Without going into spoiler territory, one of the reasons is the shifting degree of seriousness with which it takes the supernatural elements (or what appear to be supernatural elements).  This isn't an issue of ambiguity but rather violating what purports to be "real" to serve the next plot point.

If the film's story suffers, Anderson's presentation of how a family and their friends deal with grief remains palpable.  Their reactions and their behavior are, with one exception, credible.  Those with first-hand knowledge of a situation similar to this may find that "Lake Mungo" strikes a nerve too close to home.

Recommending it is a tough call because of the shakiness of the film's narrative.  But I think that its portrait of grief and recovery make for worthwhile viewing.

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