The Movie Nut

One might almost choose to call it "Gone With the Aussie Wind."

There aren't many films bold enough, audacious enough, to encapsulate an entire continent in their title. "Australia" takes that risk—an adventurous, boisterous period saga, a reverent throwback to Hollywood's post-Golden Age epic epoch, when films like "The Sand Pebbles," "Dr. Zhivago" and "Lawrence of Arabia" filled screens with stylized, largerthanlife adventures.

And "Australia" is considerable indeed. It's lavish, it's grandiose . . . and yes, it's fairly decent for those of us unafraid of sentimental (okay, gushing) films that run twice the standard length, filled with pretty people falling in love despite their determination not to do so. It's a romance, a Western, a war story, an aboriginal apology—an archetypal tale of greed and jealousy and love and honor. But it is a long film— 167 minutes—that at times feels rushed to include even more.

Nicole Kidman plays English aristocrat Lady Sarah Ashley, who reluctantly journeys Down Under to rescue her wayward husband and sell the family's unprofitable cattle ranch, Faraway Downs.

Before she arrives, her husband is mysteriously killed, and it turns out her 7-million-acre ranch (hey, it's a big island) isn't losing money so much as it's being pilfered of its valuable livestock. Faraway Downs' rugged Drover (one who drives cattle), sent to fetch Lady Ashley at the docks, looks a lot like a buff Hugh Jackman.

The film's first 30 minutes are oddly infused with comedic overtones, which gradually diminish once Lady Ashley arrives at Faraway Downs and realizes the stark, unscrupulous nature of the place. With the footstomping tenacity of the idle rich, she decides to "make a go of it."

"Australia's" story is told by native son Nullah (a terrific, insanely cute Brandon Walters), the child's voice-over filling in those occasional blanks that would otherwise have added another 30 minutes or so. The film is as much about Nullah's relationship with Lady Ashley as it is the dashing Drover's.

The motherless half-breed, part aboriginal, part Caucasian— one of countless such children imprisoned by the authorities, isolating them from an increasingly white society—pretty much steals the show. The scene where Lady Ashley attempts to sing a scatterbrained rendition of "Over the Rainbow" to Nullah, who listens in fascination, is priceless.

But then, of course, the "coppers" and the ruthless cattle barons and eventually the Japanese bombers arrive to mucky-up the whole heartwarming affair—and "Australia" is off and running, really never losing its charm.

I'll admit there's little here that one would consider "cuttingedge" material (even 1990's "Quigley Down Under" was aboriginalfriendly); instead "Australia" relies on a brushed-off, well-polished, nicely told story. To fans of the Western, "Australia" will perhaps seem rehashed, although the pleasant chemistry among Aussies Kidman and Jackman and young Brandon Walters, not to mention a gloriously rendered outback, overcomes the familiarity.

Despite its length, "Australia" rarely drags or sputters. Director Baz Luhrmann (also an Aussie) juggles the film's various substories with skill and dexterity, leaving very few loose ends. Those of us raised on stylized 21st century mayhem (e.g., "Wanted," "300," "The Dark Knight") may balk at this film's comfortably paced, magnificently photographed panache, but for anyone to whom passing minutes are meaningless in a well-crafted tale, "Australia" holds up and reminds us that good storytelling at any pace is worth watching.