Dir. Baz Luhrmann, Australia/US, 2008, 165 mins
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Bryan Brown, Ray Barrett, Brandon Walters, Jack Thompson
Review by Matthew Rodgers
G'day folks! Now cliché as it may be to start a review of Australia with such an obvious joke, it's simply used to prepare you for this lavishly bloated attempt at “Oz with the Wind” that's littered with them. From didgeridoos to bush kangaroos this is an unabashed attempt to create an old school, sweeping epic from the visionary genius of Baz Luhrmann, and while it's no Technicolor style classic, it certainly isn't Pearl Harbour either.
Set down under in a country on the cusp of World War II we chart the arrival of English aristocrat Lady Sarah Ashley (Kidman), who is in search of the husband she suspects is fraternising with the local ladies, hence his prolonged absence. What greets her is a rundown outpost, unexpected tragedy, and a straight talking cattle drover named, erm, Drover (Jackman). Faced with a moral dilemma and a growing bond with an orphaned Aboriginal boy called Nullah (Brandon Walters), with Drover's help she sets off across the outback to Darwin to drive 1,500 cattle to a home-saving payload. And that's just the half of it.
One of Australia 's biggest faults, like Peter Jackson's King Kong (with which this, visually at least, strikes huge comparison) is that it has the jarring feel of being two shorter movies horrendously edited together. Both are fine, but the transition between them interrupts the film's flow and only then does it begin to feel like a chore to sit through.
The pacing of the film is the biggest issue. The opening twenty minutes set a misleading tone that makes this wannabe epic seem more like a 70s sitcom with cardboard cut-out characters bickering in a manner more suited to “Carry On Australia” than a romantic epic. Once we're through that bumpy introduction though, there is a lot to admire about the cattle drive section of the film, as the heightened characterisations of Kidman's screeching, and Jackman's “Don't touch me Sheila” quips soon dilute to two genuinely likeable leads. Not that Luhrmann has ever had a problem in that department.
Both Kidman and Jackman do admirable jobs with the schizophrenic nature of the script and their chemistry is never in question. You would also be hard pressed to find two better looking actors to frame against the glorious colours of the setting sun, and nobody does “good looking” quite like Luhrmann. The aesthetics of Australia have a hazy romanticism to them, positioned somewhere between reality and a moving painting, though it's as much a love story between two people as it is ode to the country itself.
The biggest recommendation for getting a ticket to this Oz is the performance of Walters as the mixed raced child Nullah. It's exceptional for two reasons. Firstly in that it highlights the most interesting aspect of Luhrmann's story, which is the "stolen generation" of aboriginal children like him, who were removed from their families and for which John Howard recently issued an apology – the historical context adds an emotional weight otherwise lacking throughout most of the film. And second his performance is enchantingly brilliant. Amongst the dive bombing planes and horseback heroics, he steals the movie in two stand-out scenes. The first is an awkward exchange with Kidman, in which she tells him a bodged version of The Wizard of Oz . The look of awe on his face is one the audience might have hoped Australia would produce in them. And the second is the moment when Nullah, blacked up to look like a full-blooded aborigine to avoid capture, gets to watch said film for the first time. It's the emotional peak of the movie, and it is telling that it comes nearly two hours in.
There are plenty of moments when you can't help but be stirred by Australia 's ambition and scope. You really have to buy into the idea of the movie though, rather than just sniggering at the admittedly often cheesy dialogue. Otherwise you will merely waste three hours of your life and entirely miss the point of this impressive but fantastically flawed and bloated piece of escapist cinema.
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