Australia
2008
***
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, David Wenham, Bryan Brown, Jack Thompson, David Gulpilil, Brandon Walters
Nicole Kidman plays an uptight English lady who travels to a remote part of north Australia, only to find her absent husband murdered. Hugh Jackman plays a maverick drover who agrees to help the widow protect her farm from the local tycoon. They come from worlds apart but inevitably fall in love just as WW2 is about to expand to the Pacific. The narrator is a half-caste boy who grew up at the property. Like Rabbit-Proof Fence taught us, in those days the children of mixed race could be forcibly taken away by the authorities. Baz Luhrmann's romantic melodrama is frustratingly uneven. One moment it's funny and sweet like The African Queen, and the next it's as silly and cheesy as Pearl Harbor. The story is formulaic and the main villain, portrayed by David Wenham, is a one-note nasty who should have been written out of the script entirely. Luhrmann's visual flair is not in question, although the digital effects look surprisingly cheap. All things considered, however, this is still an oddly compelling and enjoyable epic. At 165 minutes, it never feels too long.
