Reviewed by Deborah Day
(November 2008)

Director/Writer: Baz Luhrmann
Screenplay: Stuart Beattie, Ronald Harwood, Richard Flanagan
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, David Wenham, Bryan Brown, Brandon Walters

Director Baz Luhrmann delivers another ambitious work of art.

The vaudeville-like tempo that begins director Baz Luhrmann's Australia recalls the stylized high theatricality of a Judy Garland musical, then simmers down to tell the moving story of two opposites attracting in the rough wilds of the continent before the outbreak of World War II. With the scope of Gone With the Wind, the witty repartee of Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in The Philadelphia Story, the magical emotionality of Whale Rider and the cattle-drive imperative of John Wayne-starrer Red River, Australia falls comfortably into company with Luhrmann's ambitious prior work, including William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge!

Nicole Kidman stars as Lady Sarah Ashley, who leaves her comfy estate in England to follow her philandering husband on their Outback cattle ranch, Faraway Downs, which she intends to sell to shore up the family war chest and also curb his bad habits. When she arrives in the Australian port city of Darwin, her escort, The Drover, introduces himself by callously exposing her dainty lingerie during an alcohol-fueled melee. Hugh Jackman plays The Drover to the masculine hilt - easily justifying the "Sexiest Man Alive" title People magazine recently bestowed on him. Ladies of delicate temperament be warned: The spectacle of Jackson's raw virility as he soaps up and scrubs down his dust-encrusted bare chest could provoke fainting spells or, at the very least, bouts of persistent, recurring reverie.

When she finally arrives at Faraway Downs, Lady Sarah discovers that her husband has been murdered and she must take charge of the ranch. David Wenham (The Lord of the Rings trilogy's Faramir) portrays the ranch's dissembling manager, Neil Fletcher, who masterminded the siphoning off of the Ashley's herd into that of neighboring cattle baron King Carney (Bryan Brown). Fletcher's purposes become more sinister after Lady Sarah catches him in a lie and fires him. "Pride is not power," Fletcher repeats throughout the film as his socioeconomic status grows and he continues tormenting Lady Sarah. But the phrase proves to be less advice for Lady Sarah than a mantra Fletcher himself should heed, as Wenham whips the character's villainy to an increasingly menacing froth.

Lady Sarah and Drover's love is sealed over their joint industry on a treacherous cattle drive and their care for a mixed-race Aboriginal orphan, Nullah, played by newcomer - and one of the film's true miracles - Brandon Walters, who was 11 when he was cast and had no previous acting experience. Nullah, in constant danger of being taken away by missionaries (as part of the country's "Stolen Generations"), narrates the film, and his storyline more than any other element propels the action, as when Lady Sarah and Drover disagree about whether the boy should follow his Aboriginal grandfather King George (David Gulpilil) into the wilderness on their culture's male rite of passage, the walkabout. But the disjointed family must put all other concerns aside when they are separated by war and the Japanese bomb the port of Darwin.

Luhrmann again partners with his wife, Academy Award-winning production and costume designer Catherine Martin, to bring to life this stunning cinematic ode to their home country. Though it faces stiff competition at the box office, Australia - with its sweeping vistas, epic romance and heartbreaking drama - inspires more than a few tears and promises a holiday moviegoing experience of titanic proportions. -MPM

Photos by James Fisher; TM and Copyright 2008 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.