The Burning Plain DVD Review

Dumped in the cinemas on a very limited release with virtually no publicity, this really deserved better. The directing debut of Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel writer, Guillermo Arriaga, it too is a contemporary melodrama that involves overlapping, non-chronological, non-linear narratives.

The film comprises three plot strands. The manager of an Oregon restaurant, behind her cool public poise Sylvia (Charlize Theron) is consumed with a guilt-fuelled self-hatred that manifests itself in disdainful promiscuity and self-harming.

In Mexico, an adulterous affair between lonely all-American trucker’s wife Gina (Kim Basinger) and the gentle Nick (Joaquim de Almeida) ends in tragedy when their desert trailer love nest catches fire. Meeting at the funeral, as her daughter Mariana (Jennifer Lawrence) and his son Santiago (JD Pardo) try and make sense of what happened, so their own secret romance develops.
Meanwhile, when her crop-duster father Santiago (Danny Pino) is injured and confined to hospital, he entrusts his friend to take his young daughter Maria (Tessa Ia) to America on a special mission.

Cutting back and forth between cross-generational narratives, present day and flashbacks, the film’s symmetrical strands gradually converge to reveal the unforgivable act at its heart and how the repercussions impact on all involved. But while undeniably sombre and bleak, there’s an emotional punch of hope and redemption waiting at the end of the tunnel.

It’s not too hard to see how the pieces of the puzzle fit together, but that doesn’t detract from the pleasure of watching them lock into place nor from the terrific performances by a bruised Theron, a yearningly vulnerable Basinger and, arguably the film’s strongest turn, the conflicted emotions of sensational newcomer Lawrence. A neglected minor classic that you really should seek out.