When directors left Australia saying “yes I just want to work on some big films then I’ll come back and make passion projects” it became fashionable to go “yeah, whatever” but Phil Noyce definitely did. At the height of his Hollywood career, he elected to come home and return to the world of social issues with which he’d started his career. And what’s more the result was a big local hit, the most popular film in which aboriginals had leading roles (as supposed to sidekicks, like Crocodile Dundee).
A moving story on a worthy subject – three girls who, after being torn away from their mother to go live on a mission, escape and try to rejoin her. (The scene of them being taken away is the best in the film, full of power and emotion). The adventures are unavoidably episodic, but there is enough variation: meeting the housekeeper (Deb Mailman) who is basically a sex slave, the guy who betrays them, etc. The script has Neville (Ken Branagh) espouse his point of view, but Branagh’s performance teeters over into caricature land. Fine acting, especially from the young girls, and good Peter Gabriel score.
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