With how much attention I bring to the names attached to the films I review, I really shouldn’t be in a position where I’m covering the same creative twice in a year by accident, but it seems that the Mighty Oak/Cats & Dogs 3 synchronicity from last month was just a harbinger of what’s to come. Today, we’re looking at a film adapted from a piece of classic Aussie literature by British writer Jack Thorne, who wrote the latest version of The Secret Garden to hit cinemas and screens, and who also has two other feature-length adaptations this year alone. We’ll definitely get to those at some point before the year’s out, but for right now, we’re dealing with this… and honestly, it’s got a lot of the same issues as Secret Garden.
Once again, there’s a definite feeling that certain aspects of the original story haven’t survived the adaptation process, to the point where it’s evident even to someone who hasn’t read said original story (namely, myself). There’s moments where survivor’s guilt and the danger of the natural world poke their head out, but none of it gets expanded to the point of becoming a thematic anchor for the story being told. And when coupled with how dreary and depressive the acting can get, it turns what could be considered the ‘action’ of the story into this amorphous blob of things happening for the sake of happening.
That notion also applies to the more specific moments of the story, which run into some serious Nicholas Sparksian displays of lunatic contrivance. Some of that comes through how the main plot is framed around a love triangle, with a woman in an unhappy marriage finding new love in a mysterious loner with a tragic past, but the developments beyond that tap into that framework as well. The entire third act is basically a game of finding the hairy needle in the peninsula haystack, and for as surprisingly gripping as the progression gets with the characters just missing each other, its conclusion feels way too tidy to pay off that progression.
And yet, even with that said, I can honestly say that this display of Sparks tropes didn’t annoy me nearly as much as it did in, say, The Secret: Dare To Dream. Part of that is down to the performances, which may be a tad too mopey for the colourful dialogue they’ve been given but still resonates where it counts, namely during that final act. I don’t think I’ve ever been more invested in a Garrett Hedlund performance as I was with this, and he does an awful lot through sheer physical presence. That, and his foot injury marks a rare instance of gore actually making me wince in response.
But if I had to guess, the main reason why the story didn’t bother me as much as it probably should have is with the framing. Specifically, the Aussie production values on display. Director Gregor Jordan and DOP Sam Chiplin capture the Western Australian landscape in mesmerising fashion, letting the natural beauty of the land and the bronzed tan on the actors do most of the talking. I don’t know how much of that is down to actual talent, local pride, or how much of a change it is to walled-in COVID isolation, but it looks really damn appealing and kept my interest regardless of the larger story at work. This effect is aided by the soundtrack, which employs a lot of pub folk and even a cover of Paul Kelly’s Dumb Things (I never would have guessed Garrett could make that work, and yet), and the breezy vernacular in the dialogue, making for a big helping of Aussie aesthetic that’s pretty cool to see.
Essentially, this is the same deal as Secret Garden, only amplified. The visuals are drop-dead gorgeous, and the other production values backing it create an experience that I certainly don’t regret having… but man oh man, the writing needed to be better to make the whole thing work, managing to be even worse in creating vague shadows of what I can only assume were stronger thematic touches in the source material, resulting in a story that, were it left to stand on its own, would have been a colossal bore. It’s good that it wasn’t left to carry all of this, and I’ll admit that this turned out less troublesome than the last Tim Winton adaptation I covered, but this is such a drastic case of great visuals vs. dismal writing that I honestly don’t know if I can rightfully recommend it.
No comments:
Post a Comment