My Brother Jack

A handsome version of George Johnstone's novel with generally fine performance, even if I had pictured some of the main characters a bit differently. The supporting characters came off better for me.

Based on George Johnston's classic Australian novel, Mr Brother Jack is about life in the period between WWI and WWII in the Melbourne suburbs and the relationships of these people and how major events affected people and societal views. Like most films based on novels, some poetic licence is used and the boring bits of the book are left behind in this adaptation.

It follows the life of David (Davey) Meredith, and while it's about his life, as the title suggests, it's moreso about the lives of those around him - his brother, his father, his mother.

Matt Day is great as Davey, as is Simon Lyndon as his brother Jack, (Ange Milliken as the mother too) but what really makes this film is William McInnes as their father. McInnes plays the troubled father who's struggling to adapt to his pre-war life, while suffering from and never quite gets over the trauma of the war.

What I like best about this story is the relationship of the characters. They're realistic, and encapsulate Australian relationships at their best.

Robert Menzies and Felix Williamson as Sam Burlington also deserve special mention for their strong supporting roles in this film.

Once upon a time, there was Australia, where prostitution and gambling were not officially legalized major industries in Melbourne, there were enough jobs outside these industries in other fields of activities for Anglo-Saxons at least, and there were enough newcomers from other places than England for a dirty low paid existence.

This good old time between WWI and WWII has been depicted with a DVD extract of TV show "My brother Jack", at the time a revolutionary tale of ordinary people's family, not a usual Australian story of British adventurers, pirates or simply bandits - Kelly or no-ideology-attached other criminals.

And it very much differs from usual Australian top-movies among which recent "Ten Canoes" is a welcome sound exemption, where stupidity and sexuality rule (Jakass, Bad Boy Buddy for instance).

I will not place this DVD on my shelf, but it is definitely of some interest for trying understand roots of contemporary Australia.

Tried to get through it but gave up after one episode. Didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Having not read the book I couldn't know if it was accurate. Hope the book was better. Rubbish film.

This was a great story really well told. I read the book years ago. When I saw it was being turned into a mini series I was a bit worried that it wouldn't really work that well. However the harshness of the central character's father is well represented by William McInnes.