Blu-Ray Review: Australia

Australia
2009. Dir. Baz Luhrmann. 2 hours 45 minutes
Starring Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Bryan Brown, David Wenham

I missed Baz Luhrmann’s epic western romance, Australia, when it came to theatres last fall, but I managed to finally catch it on blu-ray last night. Many critics disliked the film, because they felt it was hokey and ridiculously long, but those are in fact the reasons I thought it was great. Don’t be fooled, this is not a film, this is a movie.

Nicole Kidman stars as Sarah, an English aristocrat’s wife who was come to join him on his cattle ranch in Northern Australia, near Darwin (near is a relative term in a country where most of the interior is still pretty ragged). Hugh Jackman, as The Drover (that’s the only name his character gets) is hired to escort her there, and then, after all the ranch staff quit or are fired, Kidman hires Jackman to help her drive all the cattle back to Darwin so that they can be sold to the Army for food in support of World War II. Pearl Harbor has just been attacked, and the Japanese air force turns around and attacks Darwin, separating Kidman, Jackman, and a mixed-blood aboriginal boy that they’ve adopted, leading to a harrowing adventure to reunite them all.

Australia is not a movie you should go into comparing it to other modern movies. It is more a film of the 1930s and 1940s, with over-the-top set designs and costumes, a bombastic orchestral score, and archetypal characters and plotlines. Each beat in the film is entirely predictable, yet the film’s wholesome old-time feel makes it a good time at the movies. In fact, I would even say it’s a good family film, of the type that usually don’t get made any more. Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman could just have easily been Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh, and the film is very much an Australian Gone With The Wind, with its themes of war, class struggle, and racism.

A great film, and the blu-ray disc looks and sounds awesome. Check it out if you get the chance.

4 ½ stars.