This should have been a riveting story but it was actually limp. The story is important. It could have perhaps been saved had the director gone for realism.
For instance, in 1969, no small town Aussie kid spoke as if they were straight out of a preppie school in Britain. I might have forgiven this massive oversight if perhaps the parents of the said children were all Oxford professors but no, Toni Collette knew how to be her Australian best as did every other adult in the film, but somehow the kids, including the young Indigenous man, flopped into this small pint pot of a place with plums in their gobs. This set me on edge immediately. Get it real or forget it.
Too uneven to be enjoyable. The opening scenes are wonderfully iconic of country Australia in the era but that's where the realism ends.
All important topics utterly wasted: The effects of racism, incest, teen suicide, parents betraying their children and behaving badly... this could seriously have been a brilliant piece but I'll forget it as soon as I've finished this review. Except for the irritation of small town kids in 1969 speaking like private school kids from 2017.
For instance, in 1969, no small town Aussie kid spoke as if they were straight out of a preppie school in Britain. I might have forgiven this massive oversight if perhaps the parents of the said children were all Oxford professors but no, Toni Collette knew how to be her Australian best as did every other adult in the film, but somehow the kids, including the young Indigenous man, flopped into this small pint pot of a place with plums in their gobs. This set me on edge immediately. Get it real or forget it.
Too uneven to be enjoyable. The opening scenes are wonderfully iconic of country Australia in the era but that's where the realism ends.
All important topics utterly wasted: The effects of racism, incest, teen suicide, parents betraying their children and behaving badly... this could seriously have been a brilliant piece but I'll forget it as soon as I've finished this review. Except for the irritation of small town kids in 1969 speaking like private school kids from 2017.