| Rating: | ★★★★ |
| Category: | Movies |
| Genre: | Drama |
Starring Hugh Jackman (my all time crush) and Nicole Kidman (my all time favorite actress). Directed by Baz Luhrman (my all time favorite director), who also directs Moulin Rouge. How can this movie go wrong?
Actually, I love this movie and the fact that it made me cry buckets while watching it. Add the fact that it made me realize alot of things. Like how difficult it is to live in a country where you are being judged based on your color. I can never be too glad that I am born on a generation where racial discrimination, although still existing, is not that rumphant anymore. I can be brown and be glad and proud that I'm brown.
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In 1939, Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) travels from England to Northern Australia to force her husband to sell his faltering cattle station, Faraway Downs. Her husband sends an independent cattle drover (Hugh Jackman), called simply "Drover", to Darwin to transport her to Faraway Downs. Lady Sarah's husband, who has been trying to sell 1,500 head of cattle to the military, is murdered shortly before she arrives. Meanwhile, Faraway Downs' manager Neil Fletcher (David Wenham) is trying to gain control of Faraway Downs so that Lesley "King" Carney (Bryan Brown) can have a monopoly in the Northern Territory, which will give him leverage with the Australian army. Fletcher claims that her husband was murdered by an Aboriginal elder with magical powers, "King George" (David Gulpilil).
Lady Sarah is captivated by the boy Nullah (Brandon Walters), who was born to an Aboriginal mother and a white father. Nullah tells her that her cattle was driven onto Carney's land — in other words, stolen. Because of this, Fletcher mistreats Nullah and threatens him and his mother. Nullah proves that Fletcher is a liar by showing Lady Sarah that the windmill, which Fletcher has deemed broken, works. Fletcher violently attacks Nullah, his mother and another Aboriginal woman, but is stopped by a horrified Lady Sarah. She fires Fletcher and decides to run the cattle station herself.
Sergeant Callaghan arrives to take Nullah away, so Nullah and his mother hide in a water tower. One of the officers accompanying the sergeant tries out the water windmill, and Nullah's mother drowns while saving Nullah. Lady Sarah comforts Nullah by singing, "Over the Rainbow", from The Wizard of Oz. Nullah is interested in the song, and tells her that King George is his grandfather, and that like King George he too is a "magic man".
Lady Sarah persuades Drover to take the cattle to Darwin so that Faraway Downs can be saved. Drover, a white man, is friendly with the Aborigines, and therefore shunned by many of the other whites. He married an Aboriginal woman, but she died after being refused medical treatment because of her race. Drover leads a team of six riders, including Lady Sarah, Drover's Aboriginal brother-in-law Magarri (David Ngoombujarra), Nullah, and the station's accountant Kipling Flynn (Jack Thompson), to drive the 1,500 cattle to Darwin. Carney's men set fires to make the cattle stampede, killing Flynn. Nullah stops the cattle from charging over a cliff by apparently using magic learned from his grandfather. Lady Sarah and Drover develop a romance, and she gains appreciation for Australia. Carney's men poison the water sources along the cattle-drive route, so the group risks driving the cattle through the Never Never desert, which they accomplish with the help of King George. Reaching Darwin, the group races the cattle onto the ship before Carney's are loaded. That night, Lady Sarah and Drover attend a ball for the "Children's Island Mission", where she attempts to make the upper class whites realize that half-Aboriginal children belong to their mothers and not the government, but the organizers of the mission insist that Aboriginal women forget their "offspring", comparing them more to animals than people.
Two years later (1941), Lady Sarah, Nullah and Drover live together at Faraway Downs. Fletcher kills Carney and frames it as an accident, marries his daughter Catherine, takes over Carney's empire, and continues menacing Lady Sarah. It is determined that Fletcher was the actual murderer of Lady Sarah's husband and that Fletcher is also almost certainly Nullah's father. Nullah is drawn to perform a coming-of-age walkabout with "King George", but is captured by the authorities and sent to live on Mission Island (which bears similarities to the actual Bathurst Island) with the rest of the half-Aboriginal children (dubbed the "Stolen Generations"). His grandfather is imprisoned, accused of murdering Lord Ashley. Lady Sarah vows to find Nullah again, and while trying to secure his return begins working as a radio operator in Darwin during the escalation of World War II. Lady Sarah prepares to sell Faraway Downs to Fletcher, believing that it will aid her in gaining Nullah back. The sale is interrupted by the surprise attack on Darwin by the Japanese airforce. With Mission Island also attacked Lady Sarah fears that Nullah is dead.
Drover, who had quarrelled with Lady Sarah and gone droving apparently never to return, hears (mistakenly) that she has been killed in the bombing. Drover learns about Nullah's abduction and sets out with Magarri, Ivan (the hotelier) and the only member of the Children's Island Mission to volunteer himself to help, Brother Frank, to rescue the children. When Japanese soldiers arrive, Magarri sacrifices himself to buy the others time to escape. Lady Sarah and the inhabitants of Darwin prepare to evacuate. When Drover and the children sail back into Darwin, Nullah plays his harmonica with the tune of "Over the Rainbow". Lady Sarah hears the music and reunites with the three.
Fletcher, watching them, knows Nullah is the one link to a past that would ruin him, and also concludes that the boy must have cursed him, and so he attempts to shoot Nullah. King George sees Fletcher just as Fletcher is about to fire, and spears him through the chest just as he pulls the trigger. As Fletcher is dying, King George reprimands him for trying to kill his own son, and his magical grandson. Lady Sarah watches as Nullah falls to the ground and Drover rushes over to him. As Drover holds him in his arms, Nullah opens his eyes, revealing that Fletcher missed due to King George's actions. Lady Sarah, Drover and Nullah return to Faraway Downs. On the way, King George calls for Nullah to go walkabout. Lady Sarah embraces Nullah and lets him go to his grandfather, who tell her that, "I'll sing you to me." King George says they will return to his land, then, looking at Lady Sarah says, "our land." Lady Sarah says, "I'll hear you."
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