Overwrought 'Australia' an epic disappointment
I left the screening of "Australia" feeling like I'd just been beaten - not by fists, but by soaring trumpet blasts, endless shots of majestic landscapes and the overheated love affair between an elegant English lady and a rough Aussie cattle driver.
Whew! Someone bring me an aspirin.
"Australia" is director Baz Luhrmann's attempt to create a contemporary "Gone With the Wind," one that's set in the rugged territories Down Under shortly after the start of World War II.
Everything about the movie screams "epic": the story, the music, the nearly three-hour running time. The characters in "Australia" don't breathe, they heave.
Which wouldn't be bad, except that Luhrmann ("Moulin Rouge") never settles on a consistent tone. Is "Australia" a respectful ode to the melodramas of old Hollywood, like Todd Haynes' brilliant 2002 film "Far From Heaven"? Or is this a winking, ironic take on the genre?
It doesn't help that the film seems to go on forever. There are at least two possible endings here, maybe three. At one point, I started to gather my belongings, sure that the credits would roll. Nope. A good half-hour remained.
Nicole Kidman plays Lady Sarah Ashley, a tightly-wound Londoner whose husband is off running a small cattle operation in a remote part of Australia. Frustrated with his long absence, Sarah announces that she will pay her husband a visit. She's met in Australia by the Drover (Hugh Jackman), a brooding, muscular, sensitive local. Despite their instant dislike of each other, he agrees to take her to her husband's estate.
The story spasms into multiple directions at this point, with a plot that touches on corrupt cattle barons, the mystery of Sarah's husband's death, the fate of a mixed-race little boy, the Japanese attack on Australia in 1942 and, of course, the growing love between Sarah and the Drover.
Luhrmann's struggles with tone are evident from the start. The film opens with somber text that explains the horrific government practice in 1940s Australia of taking mixed-race aboriginal children away from their parents in order to "civilize" them. But the introductory scenes that follow are so jaunty and over-the-top that they border on parody. Sarah enters as a screechy caricature, clucking and flaring her nostrils at everything she sees. The Drover fares little better, brawling with other drunken Aussies in a scene that seems plucked from "Crocodile Dundee."
The story gets more serious later, but it's impossible to know then whether Luhrmann is playing it straight or has another punch line waiting. As a result, I couldn't invest anything in these characters. Why care about someone I might be asked to laugh at in a few minutes?
The movie's worst moments come when it tries to address the cruel racial policies of Australia's past (remember the somber text at the beginning of the film?). Instead of giving this weighty topic the screen time and respect it deserves, Luhrmann dispenses with it in a few rushed and phony scenes at the tail end of the movie.
To be sure, "Australia" has its moments: Luhrmann makes the film beautiful to look at (despite a few awkward computer effects); Kidman and Jackman make a suitably gorgeous couple; and young Brandon Walters is a revelation as Nullah, the mixed-race boy who travels with Ashley and the Drover.
But when the end finally comes, "Australia" is a wreck almost as big as "Titanic." Please, say g'night to this one.
"Australia"
Rating: 1½ stars
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, David Wenham, Bryan Brown, Brandon Walters, David Gulpilil
Directed by: Baz Luhrmann
Other: A 20th Century Fox release. Rated PG-13 for some violence, a scene of sexuality and brief strong language. 166 minutes