The dusty Australian outback is no place for a lady's soft skin, but who needs moisturizer when you can have Hugh Jackman? It's an old formula for hard country and rugged company to make the fires of passion blaze in a wintry bosom, but you still have to know where people's buttons are in order to push them.
Filmmaker Baz Luhrmann knows where your buttons are. Australia"" has its shortcomings - more than a few of them, actually - but it's pretty impressively calibrated to sweep you into a crushing embrace and dip you down for a smooch so sultry it makes your toes curl. It's a two-fisted romance with some colorful historical grandeur thrown in for good measure.
The movie's action is narrated by Nullah (Brandon Walters), a ""half-caste"" who is the son of an Aboriginal mother and white, Aussie father. The real protagonist, however, is Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman), a British aristocrat who has misplaced, yet understandable, suspicions about the nature of her husband's long absences while supervising the management of their estates Down Under.
Lady Sarah finds disarray and danger at Faraway Downs cattle station, after arriving there with the good-natured assistance of a friendly Australian cowpuncher (Jackman), whom everyone calls Drover. She also finds Nullah, who becomes an orphan just in time to make Lady Sarah's heart stretch between romantic destinies and a dormant maternal instinct.
That's only the core conflict, by the way. The movie also tangles itself in range wars, wars between nations and a bitter class war to determine the place in society of children like Nullah, who is viewed with both a sense of embarrassment and obligation.
Luhrmann seemingly acknowledges that he structured the movie to place a greater emphasis on the largely amorous travails of Lady Sarah, as the film's advertising certainly wants you to think it's an epic romance.
Although that's not untrue, there are swaths of story and definitely points of narrative clarification (like the titles that open and close the movie) that attempt to shift attention to the real-life history of children like Nullah. It is a complicated, racially charged issue that Luhrmann's otherwise two-dimensional sense of right and wrong doesn't really engage.
The writ-large ending is also a muddled picture that tries to cram in about six emotional crescendos, including a badly miscalculated bit of business with the primary villain, a cattle baron (David Wenham) from a rival ranching enterprise.
As happened recently with ""Twilight,"" ""Australia"" gets a huge boost from its sensationally effective casting. Kidman's ethereal beauty and Jackman's roguish charisma combine to produce about 9,000 volts of electrifying romantic energy, and charming first-time actor Walters confidently holds the screen against his vastly more experienced co-stars.
There's visual splendor to spare, along with a stirring symphonic score and a thrilling cattle drive, complete with breathless stampede, that saves the story from sagging too much in its weaker moments.
Grade: B
