It is certainly one of those films that some will dislike and others will enjoy despite its imperfections. That you and your family find value in the comedy it offers and continue to watch it for laughs is certainly one way to enjoy it! 😉

Then there was Nicole Kidman’s botoxically immobile face, which was barely able to grimace at intervals. When she smiled at the poor little aboriginal kid, I thought she was going to EAT him (and I think he did too)!

Then there was the way that Drover drove the cattle (ie. incessantly and nearly always at top velocity across the outback and the screen). That’s not the way you drive cattle. You wreck the meat that way. No, you drive them slowly and take care of their progress.

Then, there was the glaringly awful treatment of the aboriginal kid. Has any Australian ever heard the term ‘creamy’? No, I thought not. That’s not what mixed-race children are called. I won’t use the actual term, but it would have been far more appropriate and far less grating in a real movie. When the kid set out to ‘sing you home’, I nearly vomited. What an awful, patronising image to use in a completely unreal and unpalatable context! It made aboriginal culture look like something directly out of Enid Blyton. Yech!

Let’s not kid each other: we all knew exactly what the outcome would be from the moment the plot line was revealed. I’m not fussed on Nic Kidman as an actress, especially now she’s lost the use of her face, but Hugh Jackman tried. And failed. Blame the script.

This movie is one my family and I watch for comic relief: it’s so awful, it becomes hilarious! Sorry, but it really was that bad. 🙁

That is always my feeling. A similar book “A Town Like Alice” in much the same era (pre and post WW II) was turned into a mini series starring Bryan Brown but didn’t really tackle the aboriginal condition. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081949/ … Australia is truly too big a story not to be multiple movies or a miniseries.

Love/Hate is a perfect description. It’s so imperfect as to grate yet I still can’t help but watch it. Every time I do, I wish Luhrmann focused on just one or two aspects of the history at that time. Yet, the history of the time period he choose, that specific period, is so entwined, it’s hard to separate. Then I think perhaps if he just moved it back a few years…further away from WWII but that still doesn’t resolve the sheer scope of the story he is trying to tell. I can’t help but think how wonderful this story would have been as a mini-series.