In Kangaroo Island, a struggling Hollywood actress returns home to South Australia to confront the love triangle that tore her family apart. Source: Australian Catholics.
Kangaroo Island, with its strong local community, as well as being a scenic attraction for tourists, is the setting for this Australian drama, which centres around family, relationships, ambitions, betrayals, and many personal challenges. And the scenery looks magnificent.
As a film, Kangaroo Island makes an impact. While the story is universal and could take place anywhere, it reminds us that Australian audiences want to see Australian stories, characters they can identify with, and events and themes that may not be part of their family experience, but are part of families they know.
The focus is on Lou, a telling performance by Breeds. The film opens with her, in her 30s in Los Angeles, drained and depressed. She is a character in a popular TV series but the producers are dissatisfied with her performance. And she has broken up with her boyfriend. Her father has bought her a plane ticket home. She is hostile.
Through a series of unexpected events, she finds herself on the plane and back home. As she travels, flashbacks begin, building up the portrait of the family. We meet Lou’s sister, Freya (Clemens), and their stern father (Thomson), as well as surfers Ben and Todd (Jackson and Henbest). We learn of possible romances, Lou’s going to the US, Freya marrying Ben and having a family.
With the flashbacks, the film builds emotional tension in all the relationships, enabling us to share in the challenges of the present: Lou’s return home, Freya’s spiritual conversion, marriage tensions, financial tensions, and their father’s health.
One of the great strengths of the screenplay, written by director Piper’s wife, Sally Gifford, is that every few minutes, a new angle, a new piece of information, is introduced, credibly, but continually altering the audience’s perspective on each character and what is going on.
The narrative is continually moving with interesting developments and serious dialogue on topics such as science, religion, creation, the presence and absence of God, suffering, illness, euthanasia, law and morality. They are well integrated into the narrative.
Kangaroo Island: Starring Rebecca Breeds, Adelaide Clemens, Erik Thomson, Joel Jackson and Louis Henbest. Directed by Timothy David Piper. 116 minutes. Rated M (Mature themes and coarse language).
Review Fr Peter Malone MSC, Jesuit Media
FULL REVIEW
Kangaroo Island (Australian Catholics)
