Film In Review

Set in Australia in 1902, the irony of the title of this film will not be lost on anyone as we follow a family on the path of a dream-turned-nightmare.

Aden Young stars as Nat, the father of idealist Tom (Toby Wallace) and the pragmatic Sarah (Hanna Mangan Lawrence). He is a pious and moral man on the brink of despair following the death of his wife and is having great difficulty making ends meet on his family's small holding.

The family are settlers from England who came to build a new life, but blinded somewhat by desperation when it all fails, the family sees the unexpected arrival of three strangers to the farm as a sign of changes to come.

The strangers, ex-soldiers in the Boer War who have returned to try their luck in the gold rushes, bring with them the promise of wealth, which Nat takes to be a sign from God that his family's struggles will soon be over.

In many ways, this thriller is a fable on the dangers of greed, whatever the reason behind it.

Young is touching as the father; a man who is slowly breaking under the pressure and losing his mind. Pip Miller plays the part of the menacing stranger Henry well and Mangan Lawrence is also impressive as Sarah, a girl becoming a woman who hates her life as it is, but is compelled to stay to shelter her younger brother.

Speaking of his film, director Kriv Stenders ('The Illustrated Family Doctor'/'Boxing Day') has said the film portrays the first time you see your parents fail and what follows.

Beautifully shot on location in South Australia, ‘Lucky Country’ follows a long line of films that feed our fascination with the outback and projects Australia, in all her beauty and her terror, for all to see.

But Stenders was also interested in what he called “the landscape of the face” and the film as at times almost claustrophobic as the horror of the events unfolding is played out on the actor faces.

Also worthy of praise is the striking musical score that punctuates the film, featuring a glorious strings arrangement that somehow symbolises the loneliness of that kind of life in those times.

Being termed an 'Australian western' will inevitably draw comparisons with Nick Cave's 'The Proposition' and while the bleak reality of life in olde Australia is brought into stark relief, this is a more controlled unravelling of a society, of a family and of a man's mind.

‘Lucky Country’ screens at Dendy Portside from July 16.