Australia

Baz Luhrmann’s old-fashioned romantic drama “Australia” is long and sprawling, kind of an Australian “Gone with the Wind” with the same epic melodrama and lush romance. “Australia” opens in 1939’s England but doesn’t linger long. Snobbish Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) hears about some allegedly nasty doings at Faraway Downs, her husband’s cattle ranch in faraway Australia. and before you can say “tea and crumpets”, she flies Down Under to check out things for herself. She thinks she’ll catch her cheating husband in bed but instead finds him dead – murdered apparently by a local native. Lady Ashley plans to sell Faraway Downs to a local bigwig cattle rancher but changes her mind when she discovers her stationmaster is stealing her cattle. She’s also unhappy with his abuse of a native woman and her son Nullah, who’s hiding from the authorities. (At that time and up until the early 1970s, the Australian government’s policy was to place aboriginal children into government care.) But she can’t run the cattle station without help. That’s where the Drover (Hugh Jackman) comes in. He reluctantly agrees to help Sarah save the ranch. This leads to the highlight of the movie, a run of 1,500 cattle from the station to Darwin that is plagued with problems ranging from inexperienced riders to dirty doings by the competition. World War II has begun. First station to get its cattle to the ships wins the army contract. And that’s just the first part of “Australia”! We still have double crosses, misunderstandings and the Japanese bombing of Darwin ahead. The fair-skinned Kidman is especially ice-maidenish and prissy in her role as Lady Ashley. As the Drover (does he have a name?) Hugh Jackman is appropriately manly and strong-minded. Basically, the two have a nice chemistry between them. When Kidman wears a bright red dress to a ball in Darwin, the colour will shock your eyeballs, so used will they be to the overwhelming brownish tones of the cinematography . As mentioned above, “Australia” does sprawl all over the place. Despite its length the movie feels rushed at times because there are too many subplots. The director obviously feels strongly about the government’s past native policies to the point it seems overdone. And does Nullah have mystical powers or not? The movie can’t make up its mind about that, which makes parts of the movie illogical if the boy does have magical powers. Anyway, is this cliché necessary? Can’t he just be an ordinary boy?The romance between the Drover and Sarah feels hurried along to make room for more story threads. It would have been better serviced by a slower paced development. Hugh Jackman’s magnificent torso not withstanding, it takes more than a beautiful body and a moonlit night dancing to “Over the Rainbow” on the harmonica to fall in love as deeply as Sarah does. You may also get heartily sick of hearing “Over the Rainbow” as the musical insert for sentimentality. I know I did. “Australia” is rated PG-13 and runs about 165 minutes.