by Finnlay Dall
Worth: $0.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Rebecca Breeds, Adelaide Clemens, Joel Jackson, Erik Thomson
Intro:
Torturous, generic and lifeless …
Torturous, generic and lifeless, Kangaroo Island huffs the Hollywood exhaust pipe that is the Hallmark and Lifetime movie channels in an effort to reach any level of stardom. And with a pinch of Australian trauma-eroticism for good measure, Timothy David’s debut is a grim reminder of death in more ways than one.
When Lou Wells’ (Rebecca Breeds) dreams of being a silver screen starlet are dashed, she’s forced to make the flight of shame back from L.A to her family in Adelaide. But staying at their beach house is going to be more difficult than she imagined, as a lot’s changed in the ten years away from home. Her sister Freya (Adelaide Clemens) has given up her university pursuits to be a bible thumping housewife, her dad (Erik Thomson) is wearier and less capable, and the once blossoming wildlife of Kangaroo Island is now dwindling.
The only one who hasn’t changed is Lou’s ex, and Freya’s current husband, Ben (Joel Jackson). And with the reopening of familial wounds, romantic tensions between the pair flare up. But when Freya’s dad reveals an ALS diagnosis at a heated family dinner, this Home and Away style teen drama between adults turns quickly into a Neighbours twist that everyone could see coming. Having to contend with her father’s planned suicide, and Freya’s attempt to sell the family property, Lou will have to drop everything, even her spicy love life with Ben, if she has any chance of getting her affairs in order.
Most insulting here is the screenplay, which uses empty soap turns, tropes and characters like it was throwing darts at the board in some free-to-air exec’s office. Freja may be the film’s de-facto antagonist, but David lets scenes linger on her as if we’re to see her simply as misunderstood. But when her actions read more like an r/AmITheDevil post that would lead even God to go no-contact, it’s laughable when the writing inevitably forces the sisters to re-kindle their bond.
Lou’s greatest crime meanwhile is that she’s nondescript. She’s the “messy” woman stereotype that people confuse for nuanced the minute they put a beer bottle in her hand. When filmmakers and writers – deciding to move away from traditional gender roles – give their female characters the binary choice of being religious zealots or an AA spokesperson, it’s regressive no matter how filmmakers spin their sympathies.
The film’s use of euthanasia as a plot point for the sake of drama instead of a dramatic question is about as brazen as everything else. When Lou and Freya’s dad inevitably goes missing, Kangaroo Island plays “Will he, will he not” so many times in the span of five minutes, that you begin to wonder why you didn’t leave the theatre an hour ago. And with a last line that would make even an elementary school playwright blush, Kangaroo Island is an unfortunate showcase of our film industry’s worst habits and the unfortunate deathknell for mainstream Aussie drama.
