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Nick Curtis's rating
No wizard of Oz in Australia
By
Nick Curtis
11 Dec 2008
Baz Luhrmann's homage to his homeland is an epic folly. It yokes together a love story, a cattle-drive western, an apologia for the wrongs done to Australia’s Aborigines, and the Japanese air force’s post-Pearl Harbor attack on Darwin.
All is coated with Luhrmann’s trademark gloss of sincerely kitschy excess and studded with cinematic pop-culture references. The film is sprawling, colourful, cloth-eared and — despite lasting 150 minutes — oddly insubstantial.
It is 1939, and Nicole Kidman’s uptight English aristocrat Sarah Ashley suddenly finds herself responsible for 1,500 cattle and a cute-as-a-button, half-white, half-Aborigine boy in the outback.
Fortunately, Hugh Jackman’s hunky Drover is around to save them all from dastardly predators. And there’s half the problem, right there.Sarah is not so much a character as a showcase for Kidman’s worst acting tics, all her prissy pouts and expressions of “Botoxed” startlement.
And despite a wardrobe designed to offset her Barbie-perfect bosom, bottom and ironing-board hips, she has mutated into a curiously sexless screen presence. Jackman’s grown-up charm twinkles dimly, trapped beneath the weight of his absurdly worked-out torso. This couple’s chalk-and-cheese romance is as implausible as it is predictable.
The lady and the tramp are only half the story, though. Australia is narrated by the young boy, Nullah, played with effortless charm by newcomer Brandon Walters. Luhrmann uses his slight frame to shoehorn an awful lot of Australia’s shameful racist history into the film.
It’s well-meant and earnestly done but as usual Luhrmann goes one florid step too far. One minute he’s venerating Aborigine culture: the next he’s suggesting The Wizard Of Oz has the answer to all Nullah’s problems.
Usually, any clunkiness in the script and plotting of a Luhrmann film is offset by bold visuals. That’s the case here, but not as much as you’d expect. There are a couple of shots of devastating natural grandeur and one spectacular clifftop stampede.
But many of the outback settings look as if they were shot in a studio. Similarly, the Japanese attack on Darwin begins like an action-movie spectacle but it’s over in seconds. What’s lacking overall is the sense of conviction that made an absurd confection like Moulin Rouge! work against all the odds.
Although it’s been four years in the making, cost $130 million and was supposedly a labour of love for Luhrmann and his Antipodean actors, Australia feels phoney.
It will doubtless find a following among fans of splashy, sentiment-on-sleeve cinema, but for the rest of us it’s a down-under downer.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Reader views (4)
What a hodge-podge of a movie. The first few scenes seemed like a cartoon with caracatures of the main subjects. We were then subjected to a complete redo of "The Overlanders", with poisoned waterholes and the staring-down of stampeding cattle. I was waiting for the wichity-bug to turn up and became quite disappointed when it didn't!
I didn't find Kidman's acting as bad as others did. Though wooden, I felt that reflected the personality of the prim, uptight, aristocratic character she was playing.
The stolen generation has been better covered in "Rabbit-Proof Fence". Brandon Walters seemed too pretty for the role of the small boy. The undercurrent of objections to the treatment of the mixed-blood treatment seemed out of character for the 'English' wives and the army officer who were probably all in favour of the programme. The 'change of heart' of the Bryan Brown character was too 'Hollywood', as was the whole ending. In my opinion the movie should have ended at the end of the cattle drive anyway.
- Peter Bradford, Ellicott City, Maryland, USA, 15/12/2008 17:38
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Baz's inclusion of the so called "Stolen Generation" is a cynical exercise in Leftist muddled political thinking. If he'd bothered to do his research correctly, instead of pandering to his mates, he'd know that the events he portrays are false. Apart from that the film stinks. I read that Baz plans to direct a play at the Donmar Theatre. God willing he will, and stops making films.
- Bea Kay, Melbourne, Australia, 13/12/2008 00:01
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I saw this movie whilst in the US last week and I agree entirely with Nick Curtis' review. Every Australian cliche was used, the plot was corny & predictable; and why, oh why, did Baz use the Wizard of Oz as some sort of panacea to all of Australia's & the characters' problems? A hugely disappointing film from a wonderful director.
- Paula, London, UK, 12/12/2008 17:26
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I couldn't agree more with you. The film is horrid and is made so much worse by Kidman who I'm afraid could not act her way out of a paper bag. She is irritating in the extreme from her voice to the expressionless face. We lasted half the film... 3 of us... and all left feeling disappointed in the film and wanting our money back. Who keeps giving her film roles and why is beyond me... she is unanimated and frankly boring. By the way she was born in the USA and now lives there thank goodness.. so she is'nt Aust.
- Dex, australia, 12/12/2008 05:32
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