Australia – There’s going to be competition at the Oscars
Australia – There’s going to be competition at the Oscars
Rated: PG-13 Time: 2:45
Stars: Brandon Walters, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman and others
Final Grade: A-
Summary: I think there’s going to be some competition at the Academy Awards this year. Prior to Australia’s release all people could talk about winning Oscars was Dark Knight and WALL-E. Now there’s something else to talk about and it’s from down under.
We open the film about a year or so before the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. Lady Sarah Ashley’s(Kidman) husband is attempting to run a large cattle enterprise in the northern part of Australia. Evidently unknown to him, his best efforts are being sabotaged by his lead manager who’s sending his prize unbranded cattle to his competition next door. Fearing additional competition, her husband is killed in what looks like an attach from an aboriginal source.
This time period in Australia is similar to the old wild west in the US. A lot of times, he who had the guns made the rules, indigenous people were for entertainment and servitude and the kids produced, well, they were half breeds and outcasts. This story had repeated itself many times through history and did once again here. The only reason I mention it is that it’s part of the foundation of the movie plotline.
Ashley has been in England all this time, yet is determined that her husband should sell this money losing plot of sand in Australia and come back to England. To make her point, she travels to Australia only to arrive shortly after his murder. After her very drunk accountant tells her about how her husband’s manager has been sending cattle out, she determines to keep the ranch. Along with the ranch come a Chinese cook, two aboriginal ladies and one of their sons. Keeping in mind that the laws then and there were that mixed children were to be rounded up and sent away to an orphanage for raising, there’s the constant vigilance of the local constabulary that one has to watch out for if one intends on keeping their children. And in due course Ashley becomes attached to the child called Nullah(Walters) on her ranch and after his mother dies during a police raid, wishes to adopt him.
Needing to get her cattle to market and not having any help, she hires a roughian local cattle driver named Drover(Jackman). They’re start, as you would expect, is rocky but in short order the lot of her staff and Drover start out to take this herd of cattle to market in Darwin. This isn’t without its share of humorous scenes watching Ashley attempt to be a cowgirl.
Their trip along the way wouldn’t be complete without the usual bad guys around a few turns doing things to derail the arrival of the shipment, the interjection of aboriginal lore, means of talking with animals and more.
Her attempt to deliver the beef and rebuild the reputation of her ranch completed, she returns to the ranch to make it her home and rebuild and expand the ranch as her husband had originally thought to do. All this with the aid of Jackman, Nullah and the rest of the remaining original staff. Needless to say, romance more than just buds between Drover and Ashley. And then Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and things change.
The old cattle king that was Ashley’s nemesis has meet with an untimely demise and his empire is now being run by Ashley’s former land manager. Needless to say, his mind is bent on revenge and taking over of Ashley’s ranch. After arranging for Nullah to be kidnapped and placed on an island run by the priests for orphans (interesting how they always manage to find ways to help the kids by taking them away, yet avoid the real issue here), he arranges for Ashley to have a job working for the local war effort. And when the Japanese bomb Darwin, it’s a rush for survival and retreat with Droving coming to the rescue of both Ashley and Nullah.
This is a long flick. Don’t drink a lot of soda before or early into it. But, this is one that needs to be on your “to be seen” list of movies this fall. There’s a lot of depth that develops between the three main characters and also the reminder that people of other cultures have their ways of life that are different to us, yet not only good for them, but what they should be doing with their lives. The scenes where Nullah wants to return to his grandfather to learn the traditional old ways and leave Ashley are similar to that of a kid leaving home, in the end, that’s the way of life and nature. Sometimes it’s hard to accept what’s supposed to be.
I’m Don Rima and that’s the way I saw it, From Where I Stand.
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