Watching this again after first seeing the mini-series on TV a few years back, I am again left stunned by "Mary Bryant". It has to be one of the best productions to have ever come out of Australia. Based on the true story of a female convict who escaped the harsh penal colony in the 1700's, this is an absorbing, well-acted work.
Romola Garai turns in her best performance thus far as Mary Bryant. Garai makes Mary alternately fascinating, infuriating, gutsy, heartless, direct and selfless. The film opens with Mary Bryant, nee Broad, running along the Cornwall coastline (actually Kiama, NSW), with voice-over from Garai. Born of a fishing family, Mary is 17, wild, independent-minded and starving. Convicted of theft, she is transported to Botany Bay. In the opening five minutes, the three protagonists are effortlessly produced. Garai boards the ship, and the camera pans to fellow convict, the laughing, handsome Will Bryant (Alex O'Loughlin), who will become Mary's husband and soul mate. We then cut to Lt Ralph Clarke (Jack Davenport), the man who will be passionately, obsessively in love with her, and will stop at no lengths to have her at his side.
Davenport's Clarke is, for me, the most interesting part of this excellent production. He gives a wonderful performance as the strict soldier who will order a ferocious whipping or hanging then tenderly caress Mary's face. The film is cut and shot in a way that actually makes us sympathize, and associate Mary more with Clarke than her husband. Garai and Davenport share a volatile chemistry in these scenes, and the viewer is torn between Mary's determination to have the best for her struggling family and her use of Clarke as merely a sexual tool for her to get the key to the supply room for their daring escape. When they meet again on the beaches of Timor, the confrontation is surely one of the most emotionally moments I have yet seen. And, later, emotion does not get any rawer than Garai's speech in the courtroom back in England.
Romola Garai turns in her best performance thus far as Mary Bryant. Garai makes Mary alternately fascinating, infuriating, gutsy, heartless, direct and selfless. The film opens with Mary Bryant, nee Broad, running along the Cornwall coastline (actually Kiama, NSW), with voice-over from Garai. Born of a fishing family, Mary is 17, wild, independent-minded and starving. Convicted of theft, she is transported to Botany Bay. In the opening five minutes, the three protagonists are effortlessly produced. Garai boards the ship, and the camera pans to fellow convict, the laughing, handsome Will Bryant (Alex O'Loughlin), who will become Mary's husband and soul mate. We then cut to Lt Ralph Clarke (Jack Davenport), the man who will be passionately, obsessively in love with her, and will stop at no lengths to have her at his side.
Davenport's Clarke is, for me, the most interesting part of this excellent production. He gives a wonderful performance as the strict soldier who will order a ferocious whipping or hanging then tenderly caress Mary's face. The film is cut and shot in a way that actually makes us sympathize, and associate Mary more with Clarke than her husband. Garai and Davenport share a volatile chemistry in these scenes, and the viewer is torn between Mary's determination to have the best for her struggling family and her use of Clarke as merely a sexual tool for her to get the key to the supply room for their daring escape. When they meet again on the beaches of Timor, the confrontation is surely one of the most emotionally moments I have yet seen. And, later, emotion does not get any rawer than Garai's speech in the courtroom back in England.