Baz Lurhmann’s Australia is a cornball compote of old-fashioned romance, sweeping outdoors-y saga, and WWII drama of epic proportions—think The Thorn Birds down under, or Ryan’s Daughter set in the Australian Outback. What makes it so enjoyable is that it doesn’t pretend to be anything but. It’s far from perfect (unlike, say, Lurhmann’s earlier films Moulin Rouge! and Romeo+Juliet) but that’s also part of the film’s considerable appeal (not to mention length; it clocks in at a little under three hours but you wouldn’t know it unless you’re not having any fun at all, in which case you’ve probably already left). That darling of Aussie exports Nicole Kidman receives top billabong-ing as Lady Sarah Ashley, a right proper lady who moves to the Northern Territories when her husband loses the farm (so to speak). In the months following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Lady Ashley vows to drive her two thousand head of cattle to sell to the armed forces in Darwin, putting a crimp on rancher King Carney’s (Brian Brown) monopoly on Australian beef. With few hired hands to make the trip across then treacherous terrain, Lady Ashley reluctantly recruits the handsome and often shirtless Drover (X-Men‘s Hugh Jackman) and together with Lady Ashley’s adopted “creamy” (half-cast Aborigine, played by the strikingly good-looking Brandon Walters) the loyal band of cowhands heads north. The corn is as high as a kangaroo’s eye, mostly in the form of Lady Ashley’s primness coupled with the down-and-dirty drudgery of life on the open trail (Kidman’s wonderful, of course, and Jackman is spot on as the weary cattle hand; likewise, 12-year-old Walters is captivating as Nullah) and the only real questions in Australia are when will Sarah and Drover start snogging and when will the (boo! hiss!) villainous Carney get his comeuppance.
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(c) 2008 David N. Butterworth
butterworthdavidn@gmail.com
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