BLUEBACK
***
Director: Robert Connolly
Screenplay: Robert Connolly
Principal cast:
Mia Wasikowska
Radha Mitchell
Ilsa Fogg
Ariel Donoghue
Eddie Baroo
Eric Bana
Country: Australia
Classification: PG
Runtime: 102 mins.
Australian release date: 1 January 2023.
Robert Connolly is the first-rate director of movies like Balibo, Paper Planes and The Dry, and Tim Winton is the multi-award-winning author of, among others, That Eye, The Sky, Cloudstreet, Breath and The Shepherd’s Hut, so you’d think that putting those two talents together to make a film would be a no-brainer – it would have to be a winner. Somehow though, their combined talents haven’t managed to make Blueback as memorable as it should have been. Certainly, the novella by Winton on which it’s based has never been out of print since its initial publication in 1997, but in the transformation from page to screenplay (it was written by Connolly with some input from Winton), something of the original work’s charm has been lost.
Abby Jackson (Mia Wasikowska) is a marine biologist researching the destruction of coral reefs when she gets a call telling her that her mother Dora (Radha Mitchell) has fallen ill. When she arrives back home in Longboat Bay, the small fishing community on the west coast of Western Australia where she grew up, she starts to reminisce about her childhood and youth and the influence on her future-self of her free-spirited mum. Accordingly, we flash back to, firstly, Abby at eight-years-old (Ariel Donoghue), and, later, to when she was 15 (Ilsa Fogg), and it’s through their eyes that we learn about her relationship with a giant Western Blue Groper that she called ‘Blueback’ and her mother’s fight to save the pristine coastal environment from development.
Blueback is a gentle film with a strong environmental message at its core. As young Abby says, “We come from water. We belong to it,” and this is the key to the movie – it’s a cri de coeur for the fate of the marine world. As Winton put it to The Weekend Australian when discussing his book, “I feel very specifically that I benefited from growing up where I did [on the WA coast], where so much revolved around the sea - in a way, it was a gift and I owe it something. If the sea is ultimately where we come from, and it seems we did, then it's our source, our ancestral life and we are obliged to nourish it.” The cinematography, from on-land DoP Andrew Commis and underwater cameraman Rick Rifici (who also shot the breathtaking water footage in Breath, another filmed Winton story), certainly does a fine job of conveying that sense of awe one feels in the presence of untouched nature and shows us how important is it to nurture our natural places. Veteran composer Nigel Westlake’s dramatic score helps in that regard, too.
But Blueback is almost too gentle and reverential and lacks tension as a result. We realise very soon, for example, that the planned development of Longboat Bay never went ahead because Dora’s house and the land on which it sits are unchanged when the adult Abby arrives there. Thus, despite seeing bulldozers on the beach and hearing the concerns of the community’s inhabitants as Abby remembers the past, and although Mitchell, Donoghue and Fogg terrifically express their characters’ passion as they battle to save the community from developers, we already know the outcome and that detracts from what could have been a powerful plot point. It’s a pity because, in every other aspect, Blueback is a highly enjoyable movie, perfect for the summer holidays.
Screenplay: Robert Connolly
Principal cast:
Mia Wasikowska
Radha Mitchell
Ilsa Fogg
Ariel Donoghue
Eddie Baroo
Eric Bana
Country: Australia
Classification: PG
Runtime: 102 mins.
Australian release date: 1 January 2023.
Robert Connolly is the first-rate director of movies like Balibo, Paper Planes and The Dry, and Tim Winton is the multi-award-winning author of, among others, That Eye, The Sky, Cloudstreet, Breath and The Shepherd’s Hut, so you’d think that putting those two talents together to make a film would be a no-brainer – it would have to be a winner. Somehow though, their combined talents haven’t managed to make Blueback as memorable as it should have been. Certainly, the novella by Winton on which it’s based has never been out of print since its initial publication in 1997, but in the transformation from page to screenplay (it was written by Connolly with some input from Winton), something of the original work’s charm has been lost.
Abby Jackson (Mia Wasikowska) is a marine biologist researching the destruction of coral reefs when she gets a call telling her that her mother Dora (Radha Mitchell) has fallen ill. When she arrives back home in Longboat Bay, the small fishing community on the west coast of Western Australia where she grew up, she starts to reminisce about her childhood and youth and the influence on her future-self of her free-spirited mum. Accordingly, we flash back to, firstly, Abby at eight-years-old (Ariel Donoghue), and, later, to when she was 15 (Ilsa Fogg), and it’s through their eyes that we learn about her relationship with a giant Western Blue Groper that she called ‘Blueback’ and her mother’s fight to save the pristine coastal environment from development.
Blueback is a gentle film with a strong environmental message at its core. As young Abby says, “We come from water. We belong to it,” and this is the key to the movie – it’s a cri de coeur for the fate of the marine world. As Winton put it to The Weekend Australian when discussing his book, “I feel very specifically that I benefited from growing up where I did [on the WA coast], where so much revolved around the sea - in a way, it was a gift and I owe it something. If the sea is ultimately where we come from, and it seems we did, then it's our source, our ancestral life and we are obliged to nourish it.” The cinematography, from on-land DoP Andrew Commis and underwater cameraman Rick Rifici (who also shot the breathtaking water footage in Breath, another filmed Winton story), certainly does a fine job of conveying that sense of awe one feels in the presence of untouched nature and shows us how important is it to nurture our natural places. Veteran composer Nigel Westlake’s dramatic score helps in that regard, too.
But Blueback is almost too gentle and reverential and lacks tension as a result. We realise very soon, for example, that the planned development of Longboat Bay never went ahead because Dora’s house and the land on which it sits are unchanged when the adult Abby arrives there. Thus, despite seeing bulldozers on the beach and hearing the concerns of the community’s inhabitants as Abby remembers the past, and although Mitchell, Donoghue and Fogg terrifically express their characters’ passion as they battle to save the community from developers, we already know the outcome and that detracts from what could have been a powerful plot point. It’s a pity because, in every other aspect, Blueback is a highly enjoyable movie, perfect for the summer holidays.