Australia

A big film with big ideas: love, loyalty, greed and betrayal - all the romance anyone could want, and a powerful social message wrapped up in one of this year's best performances - the charmer of the story, Nullah, a "creamy" - a half-breed Aborigine - 12-year old Brandon Walters.

The Australian outback (is that the term?) has the same sweeping vistas of a "Lawrence of Arabia" - and I think the film tried to capture something of this epic-sized film. Not sure it entirely succeeded, but the message and the acting are superb.

Surely "Gone with the Wind" was another inspiration - note how similar is the accompanying poster is similar to one featured on IMDB for "Gone with the Wind." And Kidman and Jackman are a romantic paradigm, like Vivian Leigh and Clark Gable.

Kidman, the proper English lady goes to Australia to find her husband, sell the ranch, and return home. Jackman, "the Drover" - brawny, tough and independent - no one hires him, no one fires him ... he's his own man.

From the moment she sets foot in Australia, we know what's going to unfold for this proper lady - mostly comedic at first - what's a proper lady like this doing here - the story soon turns dramatic. Upon her arrival at the "ranch," she learns of her husband's murder. Now what? Cheated by the competitor, King Carney, sold out by one of her own men, she grits her teeth and sets her face to save the ranch, including an Aborigine family and the little boy Nullah, who's wisdom and grit win Kidman's heart.

With Jackman on the scene, there's hope - drive their good cattle to Darwin for the army more critically in need of beef as World War 2 heats up. With a rag tag band of drovers, including Kidman who's a horse lady trained in England, they get under way.

But what's a good cattle drive without King Carney, the only other competitor for the army contract, sending his bad guys to stampede the cattle off a cliff ... and what's a stampede without the good guys valiantly standing in the way to save the herd - it's all there - with an Indiana Jones like feel - what with special effects and literal cliff-running drama.

I think of John Wayne's "Red River" as the quintessential image of the cattle drive, surely an image here. Filled with lots of adventure, odd characters and drama, this 165 minute film passed quickly - I was surprised when it ended.

I enjoyed myself, had some good laughs, loved Kidman and Jackman, but will not likely forget the little boy, Nullah, and the horrors of the Australian effort to "breed out the blacks" by taking "creamies" from their families, bringing them to a mission run by the church (what else?) to separate them from their Aboriginal moorings. Once again, the church posts the lowest possible score for humanity. As the close of the film, this note - it was only in the early 70s that the Anglican Church finally ended this mission effort.

The film successfully stitches together odd images: that of the outback, what with horses and ranches, and the Japanese, Pearl Harbor-like attack on Darwin. When I first saw the previews, I wondered how this would be done, and it was done well. Another arresting juxtaposition: Jackman the Drover, roughly dressed and unshaven, and Jackman the clean-shaven man in the white tuxedo - not sure that juxtaposition made it, but it was enough to send the romance meter sky high - the closest this film came to the afternoon soap operas.

But if you like romance without bodice ripping, if you like manly-man adventure, if you like a blend of comedic and dramatic, if you like a big film with big ideas and a social message, go see "Australia."