Kangaroo Island, South Australia, a local community, bonds, and a scenic attraction for tourists. This is a strong setting for an Australian drama – family, relationships, ambitions, betrayals, and many personal challenges. And the scenery often looks magnificent: the coast, the roads, and glimpses of animals in their settings.
As a film, Kangaroo Island makes quite a strong impact, and while the story is universal and could take place anywhere, it reminds us that Australian audiences want to see these Australian stories – characters that they can identify with, events and themes that may not be part of their family experience but are part of families that they know.
The focus is on Lou – a telling performance by Rebecca Breeds. The film opens with her, in her 30s, in Los Angeles, drained and depressed, a character in a popular TV series but with producers dissatisfied with her performance. And she has broken 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, some flashbacks begin, building up the portrait of the family: a strong bond with her sister, Freya (Adelaide Clemens); their stern father (Erik Thomson); surfers Ben and Todd (Joel Jackson and Louis Henbest). Possible romances, Lou going to the United States, Freya marrying Ben and having a family.
With the flashbacks, the film builds up some emotional tension in all the relationships, enabling us to share in the challenges of the present – Lou settling back home, or not; Freya becoming a devout and rather evangelical Christian; her two polite sons; marriage tensions; financial tensions; and the state of health of their father.
One of the great strengths of the screenplay, written by director Tim 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 perspectives on each of the characters and what is going on. In fact, this continues right until the sudden comic/serious moments at the end between the two sisters. The narrative is continually moving: interesting developments, quite a lot of serious dialogue – in fact, science, religion, creation, the presence and absence of God, suffering, churchgoing, illness, and the question of assisted suicide, law, and morality. They are well integrated into the narrative.
Kangaroo Island is a strong indication of how important local content is and how, if it is well done as here, it can make quite an impact for local audiences who can identify with the issues that they know personally or that they observe around them.
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