Movie Night
Over the past several weeks we have caught up a bit on our movie watching. We have watched most of the critically acclaimed movies from the Academy Awards plus a few the critics may not know about. My favorite is Australia starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. I’m not saying this would have received my vote for best movie of the year (definitely in the top three) but it’s the movie I liked the most. The storyline is as predictable as an old western but you don’t really care. Entertainment Weekly described the movie as a cross between Gone with the Wind and Out of Africa. I think that is a reasonable description based on the feelings I had at the end of the movie. Kidman plays an English aristocrat, Lady Sarah Ashley. Her husband owned a cattle station in northwest Australia which she has now inherited. She decides to visit and determine firsthand what to do with this property. As it turns out, the largest cattle baron in that area has been plotting to take the property, which is the only cattle station he does not own. Lady Ashley is helped by Hugh Jackman’s character, Drover (that’s the only name you get through the entire movie). He is definitely the John Wayne or Glen Ford type character. Their only hope of saving the station is a long cattle drive across the desert to Darwin. The film is set at the beginning of WWII and Darwin is bombed by the Japanese during the last part of the movie.

The movie is filmed in a beautiful but somewhat desolate part of Australia. Faraway Downs (the name of the cattle station) is a place everyone wants to visit, especially after the seasonal rains turn it from a drab brown landscape to a colorful, park-like setting. Like the old westerns, the good guys win, the bad guys lose, and Faraway Downs (just like Tara) is preserved. It’s a “feel-good” movie for sure and one that I will probably buy.