Simple Stories Writ Large

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

Australia - Movie PosterAUSTRALIA is the big epic film starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman that was directed by Baz Luhrmann and which will likely remind you of many other movies and possibly annoy you with its many endings.

The difference between all those other movies and this one? All those other movies are stitched together into one movie and relocated Down Under in Australia just before World War II.

The reason there are many endings? All the stories are stitched together, one right after the other, each with its own ending, so that just as you think the movie is over at one satisfying ending, another familiar story begins with the same characters and leading to another ending. More than once.

I have said it before, and I will say it again: Hollywood has run out of ideas. This time, big time.

The first story begins in September 1939 at a cattle station called Faraway Downs in the Outback of Australia. We hear the narration of Nullah, a little boy who says he belongs to no one, because he is a “creamy,” a child of mixed race whose father was white and whose mother is an Aborigine.

Nullah sees cattle being stolen, comes face to face with the body of a murdered man, and then proceeds to tell the story of whom he calls “The strangest woman I’ve ever seen.”

She is Lady Sarah Ashley, and we see her in England complaining that her husband spends too much time in Australia. So, she travels to Australia in order to sell Faraway Downs and return to England.

Then we meet The Drover, whose occupation is to drive cattle from one place to another. He was sent to meet Lady Ashley in Darwin and take her to Faraway Downs.

They “meet cute,” with a lot of cheap laughs. They travel to Faraway Downs, which is no easy task. She learns that her husband has been murdered in a connection to steal her cattle and buy out Faraway Downs by a competing rancher.

Then comes the “Cattle Drive” story in which seven people–Lady Ashley included–drive 1500 head of cattle to Darwin to sell to the Army. If you have seen one cattle-drive story, you have seen this one.

But, wait! There is more. Many more.

AUSTRALIA is nothing but simple stories writ large.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”