by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $13.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Ryan Corr, Lily Whiteley, Brooke Satchwell, Deborah Mailman, Roy Billing, Wayne Blair, Ernie Dingo, Rarriwuy Hick, Trisha Morton-Thomas
Intro:
… has its stumbles, but as family-friendly entertainment and measured cultural examination, it has more than enough charm to make up for the lulls.
After working in US telly over the past two decades, following her breakout debut with the coming-of-age classic Looking for Alibrandi, director Kate Woods has finally returned to the local big screen. And she’s brought along some deadly acting talent, from Deborah Mailman to Wayne Blair, from Ernie Dingo to Rarriwuy Hick, from debuting young actress Lily Whiteley to even tapping Rachel House, all to tell the story of Chris ‘Brolga’ Barns, founder of the Alice Springs Kangaroo Sanctuary. Well, kind of…
The word “inspired” in Kangaroo’s marketing is doing a lot of heavy lifting. While it shares certain details with the come-up of Mr. Kangaroo Dundee himself, the story of ‘cancelled’ TV weatherman Chris (Ryan Corr) is a might different to the records. The pivotal moment where he rescued a joey from their dead mother’s pouch is shown, but with the added detail that the car that hit the kangaroo was his own. And all this after an incident with a dolphin made him… let’s say ‘unpopular’ with the Aussie mainstream.
Chris’ arc, of the fish-out-of-water boofhead learning to consider the wellbeing of others, is both fairly predictable and more than a little muddled within the film’s own pacing. With the inclusion of Whiteley’s Charlie, an Indigenous youth dealing with the death of her father, it can often feel like the film isn’t clear on who is supposed to be the ‘main’ character, which makes the attempts at pathos strained at times.
However, while the story itself may not be anything special, the framing for it is quite interesting. As Chris finds himself the caretaker for little joey Liz, Woods and writer Harry Cripps (Penguin Bloom, My Freaky Family) make intriguing parallels between the treatment of kangaroos (a species regularly regarded as pests that need culling), the societal treatment of rural Australian communities from the perspective of coastal privilege, and the historic treatment of Indigenous peoples. To quote [and interject] Prof. Marcia Langston, “we were not classified under the ‘flora and fauna act’ [a popular myth that purportedly began as a metaphorical jibe by filmmaker Lester Bostock in the ‘70s] but we were treated as animals.”
The film’s depiction of living things deemed ‘lesser’ by others allows for poignancy by tapping into the wider cultural differences between the letter of the law (both of man and of nature) and the spirit of the law. More so than just learning to be a better person, Chris is learning to be a better ally, and not just to the animals.
It also helps that the animals are adorable. The joeys are all flesh-and-blood, and that tangibility does wonders for the wildlife connections made on-screen. Corr’s performance elevates his archetypal role, and the supporting cast are all on their A-game, both in drama and in the thankfully-consistent sense of humour in the script’s dialogue. The film as a whole looks bloody beautiful, as right from the literal first image of the Northern Territory landscape, Woods and DP Kieran Fowler are locked-in to show the grandeur of the land and its many critters.
Kangaroo has its stumbles, but as family-friendly entertainment and measured cultural examination, it has more than enough charm to make up for the lulls. While its backing by StudioCanal (right down to a rather unexpected Paddington cameo) shows that there’s international aspirations behind this production, it seems unfair to immediately decry this as yet another Aussie tourism ad masquerading as cinema. Its status as a potential overseas hit is much like its status as a “kids’ film”: will younglings and Yanks get something out of it? Absolutely. But because of the nuances in its emotional statements and even some of its darker jokes, there’s just as much here that adults and especially local adults can gain from experiencing it.
