We of the Never Never

I had never heard of this film and spotted it on a shelf at a rental store some years ago. I started watching it (first few minutes is need to get you to the outback) and suddenly was engulfed by it's brilliance. I watched it all the way through then called three friends and threatened them if they didn't drop what they were doing and get to my house. We all watched it. They all paid the late fees so they could take turns having friends over to watch it. You think life is rough now? Wait till you see what this woman endures and conquers with her incredible husband, the ranch hands and the aborigines.

The Never Never is Australia's home-grown version of a hostile environment. Bad enough now with modern conveniences but brutal in the early 1900s. Survival depended on factors few today could fathom. This movie is an open window to that time. It's about relationships that had to be built from the sweat and dust of hard work. Hollywood doesn't have its mark on this one so see it for certain. The right drama with the right characters. Professional acting producing a beautiful memory.

Watching the film straight after reading the book made for a very poor viewing experience. Where the characters in the book were alive and so multi-dimensional, they sadly lost most of that in the film, which chose to diverge from the book in so many places that it became unrecognizable. Key events in the film did not happen in the book and others that I considered important were omitted from the film. The book was set as a narrative, you were following her thoughts, listening to her voice and I wish they had transferred this concept to the film. Too many key characters were omitted from the movie and those that remained seemed to have lost their voices by being given too few lines. All in all a nice movie, and beautifully shot and acted, but not a true representation of the book or the true events.

A remarkable movie about a woman overcoming sexist and racial prejudice in outback Australia. McGregor is very convincing as Jeannie Gunn as she battles constantly to be seen as an equal amongst the menfolk on the station on which she lives with her husband. The fight seems a losing battle however as the views held by the men (regarding both women and indigenous people) are hard to overcome.

Anyone outside of Australia who is interested in an accurate portrayal of the early relations between Australian Aborigines and white Australian's then this movie is for you.

This movie strays way too far from the book. The entire story line from the time they get to Elsey takes a turn away from the truth, as told by Mrs Aeneas Gunn. While the movie is visually beautiful, I was sad to see that all the parts of the book which were particularly special, like her relationship with the stockmen, were traded in for a conflict based on race. Even her relationship with the Maluka is cheapened. I would like to see this book remade into a movie that is truer to the original.