He’s only directed three other movies, yet five minutes into Australia I could already tell I was watching a Baz Luhrmann film. It wasn’t just the old-time opening, or the grainy-yet-computerized globe-trotting animation detailing Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman)’s journey from Britain to Australia (though that certainly helped), it was the film’s aggressively old-fashioned atmosphere, combined with a complete lack of cynicism on the director’s part. Formula rules in studio movies, but it’s a knowing, calculated formula, created by executives who don’t believe in it to hoodwink the masses who do. Like Moulin Rouge before it, Australia is most groundbreaking in its creator’s sincerity.

Pity it’s not a better movie.

It starts off well, justifying the reason for its existence by mentioning something about the Australian government’s policy during WWII to kidnap half-white/half-aboriginal boys and take them away to be trained for service – and to have the “black” stripped from them. These kids, according to the movie, became known as “the lost generation,” and the government didn’t issue a formal apology for them until this year. Australia is narrated by one of these lost boys, a “half-breed” known as Nullah, played by newcomer Brandon Walters. It quickly becomes clear, however, that Nullah’s place in history is just a backdrop for the old-fashioned romance he witnesses between Lady Ashley and Drover, a cattle driver played by Hugh Jackman.

This Western romance, which takes up the movie’s first act, is gorgeous and entertaining, as Luhrmann makes liberal use of both the Australian outback and his effective leads to bring us scenes that are by turns touching, thrilling, and funny. Lady Ashley and Drover (with Nullah’s help, of course) lead a cattle drive across the desert while contending with a group of wranglers led by Lady Ashley’s former rancher (played by David Wenham). I’d heard complaints the movie feels too long, but my impression with this first act was it wasn’t long enough – most glaringly we hear multiple stories about the treacherous “Never Never,” and apparently Nullah and co. trek through it, but we never actually see it.

Then their trek comes to a successful close (was there ever any doubt?) and the second act begins.

The problem is this second act, the brooding, romantic war epic promised by the trailers, feels completely separate from the first. And since I already felt like I had seen a complete film, it would have needed a new setup to engage me. As is, it never gained its footing. The second act isn’t a total loss, since Kidman, Jackman, and Walters’ characters remain engaging, and Wenham makes an especially good nasty-yet-sympathetic villain, but instead of being pulled along like I was in the first act, I felt disconnected, and was simply watching it lumber from one plot point to the next with Luhrmann’s characteristic quickness. Perhaps audiences will disagree with me; I hope they do. Personally I was left to think about (and shudder at) what was ideologically wrong with the movie.

You didn’t think I’d finish this review without mentioning something, did you? The film pretends to be about something, but really isn’t. It elevates a beautiful white woman to sainthood for realizing how unfortunate the circumstances around her are, but never leaves any doubt that she is above them, nor does it address the underlying reasons. It pays the social consequences Nullah would have faced being a half-breed lip service without depicting them. It presents another character as an adult mirror to Nullah – half-black, half-white, when in reality he isn’t, nor could he look, less black. No less than three aboriginal characters are reverently presented as magic negroes, including one who heroically sacrifices himself. You really want to depict a lesson being learned? Have the sexist, racist white Russian sacrifice himself.

…And yet this is a Baz Luhrmann film. It was clearly directed by someone who cared about his audience and wanted to entertain. It looks like something that required nine months of shooting. As I’ve said before, better a movie that aims high and misses than a movie which aims low and hits. I would not have regretted spending $11 to see it. We deserve a market for intelligent filmmaking like this, so here’s hoping it does well.

I just can’t help wishing Australia had been a better movie.






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