Henry Lawson's 1892 short story The Drover's Wife is a beloved classic from Australia's pioneering past. But like most colonial literature, it marginalizes First Nations people, usually portrayed as scoundrels or savages. In her first narrative feature film, Indigenous actress and filmmaker Leah Purcell recaptures the story from the perspective of an Aboriginal woman, a tripartite process that began with a play and a novel based on the same source material. An interrogation of Australia's history of racial violence that also tackles gender, identity and domestic abuse in a context that seems like something out of an archetypal country western, the riveting thriller is admirably ambitious yet choppy, at times evading the scope of the director.
Picked up for North America by Samuel Goldwyn Films ahead of its SXSW premiere, The Drover's Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson (the awkward title doesn't specifically include a colon) continues in the vein of recent Australian historical westerns like Sweet Country, True History. of the Kelly Gang and the oven. As in those films, the sweeping landscapes and immense skies, often shot in beautiful time-lapse cinematography, lend breadth and power to the drama, which was shot in the Snowy Mountains region of southern New Wales. from the south.
Director: Leah Purcell
Writer: Leah Purcell
Stars: Leah Purcell, Rob Collins, Sam Reid
But Purcell's script, particularly considering this is the third installment in her saga, could have used another pass or two to improve the cohesion and flow of her. The central relationship provides a strong core, focusing on a woman who has chosen to live outside of a society that offers her no protection and the entry into her life of a storyteller with information about her origins that further isolates her. The confusing drama that surrounds it, however, is less effective.
Purcell delivers the line with such confidence and authority that if John Wayne or Charles Bronson had been on the receiving end of that threat, they probably would have changed their minds and raised their hands. Never mind that Molly is extremely pregnant, without the protection of her absent husband, a herder too far from home for months, and fending for herself in their isolated shack in the Snowy Mountains region of New Wales. South. From the start of "The Rancher's Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson," an exceptionally compelling outback western, there is no doubt that it will take more than the sudden appearance of an escaped Aboriginal convict (and possible serial killer) to shake her settle or break the spirit of it.
Elements drawn from Aboriginal storytelling tradition, mythopoetic frontier folklore and classical Western vernacular help to inject an epic dimension into the material. But the sketchy outlines of the supporting characters, clunky subplots, and wobbly transitions fail to tie everything together. Scene for scene, it's compelling, but there's an uneven quality to the film, not helped by jarring anachronisms in language and political themes. It pulls the viewer out of the story to hear a late 19th-century Aboriginal character define his crime as "Resisting as a Black," a pithy phrase that instantly evokes contemporary protests of racial discrimination.
Molly Johnson (Purcell) lives in a ramshackle shack cut off from the fledgling Everton township, where lawmen, starched clerics, prostitutes and rowdy ranchers co-exist without much mutual respect. While her husband Joe de Ella is away for long periods, herding sheep in the mountains, she struggles to protect her four surviving children, with another on the way. The tough frontierswoman shows off her shotgun skills when she kills a wild bull that roams her property, an incident that becomes her eldest 12-year-old son Danny's favorite story. Malachi Dower-Roberts).
The smell of roasting meat attracts the hungry traveling sergeant. Nate Clintoff (Sam Reid), on his way to enforcing Crown law at Everton; and his wife Louisa (Jessica De Gouw), raised in London, an aspiring writer who defends the rights of battered women in a loose thread. Molly feeds the couple and shares a romantic description of her feelings at seeing Joe returning from the highlands to a joyous welcome from his children. But the veracity of that account will be called into question as she reveals more about her absent husband.
Nate barely settles into work before he has to solve a multiple murder case, when the family of a local bigwig is found dead. Around the same time, an Aboriginal runaway named Yadaka (Rob Collins) shows up at Molly's house just as she goes into labor. He assists with the birth and shows compassion for his pain. She repays him by removing the metal shackle he wears around his neck and providing him with food and shelter.
As both writer and director, Purcell strives to keep all the narrative plates turning. Louisa's life-threatening bout with a flu epidemic is to no avail, while Nate seems to transform into an entirely different tortured character as the murder investigation yields few leads. Questions about the racial purity of Molly's offspring lead to a custody threat from Everton's clergyman and his sister, which folds into the ignominious Australian.
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