Camden Movies: The Burning Plain | Guillermo Arriaga | Kim Basinger | Charlize Theron

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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with DAN CARRIER
Published: 12 March 2009

Kim Basinger and Joaquim de Almeida in the Burning Plain

Aches on a plain falls flat

THE BURNING PLAIN
Directed by Guillermo Arriaga
Certificate 15

THIS Kim Basinger and Charlize Theron vehicle doesn’t fall down due the capabilities of the leading actors, nor the direction, which brings the sun-baked windswept loneliness of New Mexico to life.
It’s just the slow-slow-slow, never-quick-slow pace seems to be a substitute for the type of gradual suspense that a mystery requires. This film staggers along while we are supposed to keep our interest alive in the back-stories of these two women.
We learn that Basinger’s character Gina has had something unpleasant happen to her. But what? This is the burning question we are meant to want answered (anyone who recalls her roles in such 1980s classics as My Step Mother Is An Alien will confirm she does indeed have a murky past).
Something vile has happened to her daughter Sylvia (Theron) in her childhood which she has never come to terms with. And then there are numerous sub-plots which are in some way linked to the lead pair. Both are detached and rather cold as the complicated plot works its way to a conclusion.
Sadly, the two leads appear as cheerful as the chops on Deputy Dawg and in the end Burning Plain fails to satisfactorily explain why we should care that this is so.

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