Welcome to Rearview Mirror, a monthly column in which I re-view and then re-review a movie I have already seen under the new (and improved?) critical lens of 2023. I’m so happy you’re here.
Australia is the first movie that ever got me in trouble—not because it was too violent or sexy (it’s not very much of either), but because it was too long. A friend and I saw it on a whim one evening thinking we’d be out of the theater in time for a late dinner, but when it was over almost three hours later (if you factor in commercials and trailers), I had a couple missed texts and calls from my mom asking where exactly I was. Fifteen years later, that length might be what most people remember about Baz Luhrmann’s epic adventure, one that hasn’t maintained nearly the cultural cache of Moulin Rouge! or Romeo + Juliet, or even the GIF-ability of The Great Gatsby (Leo with that toast—oh my, old sport!). So, given that the even longer version is now available on Hulu as a limited series, it’s worth asking: isn’t that insane?
Call me crazy but…no? Revisiting the movie in my post-having-a-curfew-era, I see it with much kinder eyes. It’s certainly and obviously a love letter to Baz’s home country, the forced parallels to The Wizard of Oz are charming rather than obnoxious (Oz-tralia is a bright world of color and whimsy!), and the director’s take on Jackman is, well…he gets the female gaze. Wolverine has never looked hotter, ever.
The plot is almost too long to recap, but I’ll sketch you an outline: Just as World War II is breaking out in Europe, an English aristocrat called Lady Ashley (Nicole Kidman; I still think it’s downright bizarre to make a movie about Australia and cast arguably the most famous Australian woman alive as an Englishwoman) travels to her murdered husband’s cattle farm, Faraway Downs, to set his affairs in order, only to find that the nefarious Fletcher (David Wenham, who will always and forever be Faramir to me (#FaramirDowns)), a ranch hand (or something?), has been double-crossing Lord and Lady Ashley and working for Carney, the more corporate cattle farmer who owns the surrounding land. Carney is a capitalist monopolist, but…not evil? OK, anyway, so if they want to have any hope of saving the farm they need Drover (Jackman) to get the cows from one side of Australia to the other.
“Get the cows to the harbor” is such a clear stopping place that it’s downright unsatisfying when that happens and there’s still half a movie left.
But the important part is actually the government forcibly removing mixed and Aboriginal children from their families to be sent to schools to learn how to be, essentially, white, and Lady Ashley, who can’t have children, and Drover, whose Aboriginal wife died of TB after World War I because the hospitals wouldn’t treat her, essentially adopt this orphan kid named Nullah, who is absolutely delightful and so cute when he talks about doing magic (before you look up what that charming child actor is up to now, be warned: it is not good).
Anyway that’s only like half the movie, which is very much to its detriment, as “get the cows to the harbor” is such a clear stopping place that it’s downright unsatisfying when that happens and there’s still half a movie left. The dialogue can be at times hokey, with various characters repeating obvious platitudes as if they’re insightful, and the satirical, over-the-top stylistic choices come and go in a way that robs the movie of its energy. What should be a rollicking, sprawling spree culminating in heart-thumping action and passionate romance is instead intermittently exciting and only sometimes surreal. It’s a pleasant viewing experience, but it still leaves you thinking, “Wait, what exactly happened at the start? Why did all of this take place?”
Which is why I kind of think it might work really well divided into episodes, which are knit together by common characters and themes but can have smaller payoffs and still feel complete. And obviously I could just watch the new series and let you all know if that’s the case but…I’m tired. And it’s getting bad reviews. Which doesn’t mean I’m wrong! And if it’s bad, then this is a column about why the movie is better! Hah! Gotcha!
It’s a pleasant viewing experience, but it still leaves you thinking, “Wait, what exactly happened at the start? Why did all of this take place?”
A straight-to-streaming limited series is an inventive and super modern evolution for a movie that is an absolute throwback, from the gruff brute and the prissy beauty falling for one another to the deliberately old-school credit sequence. Of course, Baz has always been interested in the past and in the Golden Age of Hollywood’s way of doing things—his sets are opulent, his vistas soaring, his scores sweeping. He employs multiple screenwriters and gets big performances from his stars. It’s all very Casablanca, and, yes, somewhat Wizard of Oz.
And perhaps there’s something smart about that approach, making the kind of long and laborious film that rewards patience rather than the candy-high quality of Moulin Rouge! or the equally dazzling and musical Elvis. Because I have to confess something my 2008 self would never believe: last time I watched Moulin Rouge!, I thought it was kind of…not great? And I suspect that in another 15 years, Elvis (which is about Tom Parker, anyway) will be the fun but not definitive version of a story more artfully told in Priscilla.
Unwieldy, uneven, difficult, and gorgeous, Australia is like the country itself. Perhaps not a kingdom of grand tradition, but worth a visit nonetheless. And I really can’t stress enough how good Jackman looks. FL
