FORCE OF NATURE

Australia, 2024, 120 minutes, Colour.

Eric Bana, Anna Torv, Deborra-Lee Furness, Robin McLeavy, Sisi Stringer, Lucy Ansell, Jacqueline McKenzie, Jeremy Lindsay Taylor, Richard Roxburgh, Tony Briggs, Kenneth Radley, Archie Thomson, Ash Ricardo, Ingrid Torelli, Matilda May Pawsey.

Directed by Robert Connolly.

Novelist, Jane Harper, has had considerable success, critical and popular, with her detective stories featuring Federal Police investigator, Aaron Falk.

On screen, writer-director, Robert Connolly (Balibo, Blueback) directed Jane Harper’s novel, The Dry, popular with Australian audiences – and overseas. It introduced Eric Bana as the detective, in the desert outback of Northwestern Victoria, the complexities of life in the town, family relationships, murder.

While Force of Nature is advertised in the media as The Dry 2, that subtitle does not appear in this film at all. In fact, the temptation must have been to call this investigation The Wet or The Damp (not attractive marquee titles). Rather, there is the force of nature in the mountain terrains where the action takes place, filmed in the Otway Ranges, the Dandenongs just outside Melbourne, the Yarra Valley. And, the scenery is often beautiful, moments breathtaking, mountains, forests, valleys, creeks, waterfall.

The occasion for the action is one of those team-building retreats popular with some corporations. This time there is a focus on a group of women employees in an international company which, in fact, is under investigation by the Federal Police, donations to charities but also the funding of human trafficking, money-laundering… An the face of the company for the film is veteran, Richard Roxburgh.

However, it is his wife, played by Deborra Lee Furness, strong-minded, employing the women, testing them, leading them out into the mountains, wanting to bind them together. But, at the film’s opening, Aaron Falk receives a phone call from one of the team members, cut-off. The audience then sees some of the members of the group emerging from the bush, onto a road, hailing down traffic, but the revelation that one of the team is missing, the woman who made the phone call, Alice.

The screenplay for the film, by Robert Connolly, parallels the structure of novels, bringing one episode to a climax or moment of tension, then moving to another aspect of the story, then another, and back, developing the narrative, creating issues because this is a police investigation.

We are invited to concentrate on the women on their walk, their personalities (well developed for our understanding of them), bonding, clashes, getting lost, struggling in the dark, finding an abandoned hut (and the screenplay indicating a story of a serial killer in the bush 40 years earlier). While Jill, the leader, is a strong personality, the focus is on Alice, played by Anna Torv (reminding audiences that she can play dominating, tormented, sometimes self-doubting characters as in her award-winning performances in The Newsreader).

There is also the threat of plot with Alice, an informant to the Federal police, financial difficulties of her own, pressured to get information on the company, clashing with her close friend, Lauren, also on the trek, and their daughters both going to the same exclusive school. When Alice disappears, her friend spent a lot of time standing on the top of a fast waterfall, looking and hoping for her return.

But, keeping it all together is the investigation by Aaron Falk, Eric Bana once again an engaging screen presence, supported by a tough Jacqueline McKenzie as his partner. What enhances his presence is a stream of flashbacks to his boyhood, accompanying his enthusiastic bushwalking parents into the mountains, learning a great deal about bushcraft, the stars and directions, searching for his mother after an accident in the bush, standing in for in good contribution as the search for Alice proceeds.

As with all good mysteries and investigations, there are some unanticipated twists in the plot – but, the audience sporting a clue halfway through and wondering where it will lead, unexpectedly bringing the investigation to a satisfying conclusion.

1. The popularity of Jane Harper’s novels? The impact of the film version of The Dry? This story as a stand-alone story?
2. The title, the visualising of nature, mountain ranges, hills and valleys, treason paths, rivers and creeks, waterfalls, the seasons, rain, storms? The musical score?
3. A federal police investigation story, the role of Aaron Falk, audience knowledge of him from the previous film? Eric Bana and his screen presence and performance? The focus on him and his work, partnership with Carmen, no personal background story? The contrast with the back story of his childhood, his travels in the mountains and forests, drawing on his learning and experience, his father teaching him, the support of his mother, his mother lost, the accident, finding her, the rescue, hospital? His finally telling the story to Carmen? His background enabling him to help in the search to find Alice?
4. The corporate business story, the role of Alice, the desperate phone call from the mountains, her work in the company, stealing the money, paying for her daughter’s education at the privileged school, Aaron and Carmen and their hold over her, her filming the documents, the meetings with the two, her fears, resistance, the fact of the filming, the USB stick, her going on the retreat, the meeting with Daniel and the misinterpretation, his wanting the information from her, her dominating personality, bullying, disagreeing with people wanting her own way, hiding the USB stick? Her relationship with Lauren, the past, school, their daughters, the bullying, Lauren and the clash, Alice not apologising, the attack, Alice hitting her head, her death?
5. The retreat story, the company, Jill as leader, hiring Alice, keep an eye on the staff, hiring Bree and Beth, the retreat for team making and building, her personality, her relationship with her husband, suspicions about Alice, her role in the retreat, leadership and decisions?
6. Daniel, the company, charities, money-laundering? His presence, the meeting with Alice? Suspicions? Not wanting Jilll to talk to Aaron without a lawyer? Jill talking, their secret? His final confrontation with Aaron, the role of the police, Aaron and his hostility, and the final victory with the recovery the USB stick?
7. The intercutting of the women, the trek, the manager, his leadership, the information about the tracks, the flags on the trees, the nightly shelters and provisions? The portrait of the women, Jill and her leadership, Lauren and her experience, Alice and her domination, always quibbling, expectations, the two sisters, the revelation about Beth and the drugs, stealing from her sister, the revelation that her sister informed the police, Bree and her moving the body, thinking that Beth had killed her? The funnel-web attack? The women and their secrecy, Lauren standing at the waterfall waiting for Alice to come back? The two sisters, one thinking the other guilty? Jill and supplying information? The visualising of the fight, Jill being punched, Alice and her leaving, the revelation of the confrontation with Lauren, the phone call to Aaron? Her death? Her relationship with her daughter?
8. The intercutting of all the themes, the local police, traditional methods, finding Aaron intervening? His skills, connecting with the camp organiser, the story of the serial killer and his victims, the women finding the hut, the dog’s burial, the mound? Aaron, finding the hut, burial place, and consolation for the families of the victims of long ago?
9. The pieces all coming together, the business aspects and the USB stick and the federal police investigating Daniel in the company? Lauren and her fall over the waterfall, Aaron rescuing her? Taken into custody? Her future? The two sisters and the reconciliation? The two daughters and their future?
10. A satisfying blend of a variety of themes and stories and strong delineation of characters?