This Australian film tells the dramatic story of a Stage Designer who returns to Australia to say farewell to his mother, who is dying. Problematic relationships with both family and friends affect his intentions, and emotional conflicts confront him that he must try and find ways to resolve.
THE TRAVELLERS. Starring: Bryan Brown, Luke Bracey, Susie Porter, Christine Jeffrey, and others. Directed by Bruce Beresford. Rated M (Coarse language and sex scenes). 97 min.
Review by Peter Sheehan, Jesuit Media Australia
This is the most recent film from Australian film Director, Bruce Beresford. In the movie, Stage Designer, Stephen Seary (Luke Bracey), who is highly successful on the international opera circuit, decides with mixed emotions to return to Australia to farewell his mother, before returning to Europe to consolidate his career. His mother Enid (Christine Jeffery) dies, and stress affects Stephen, as he attempts to navigate complex family tensions, and past romantic attachments.
Bruce Beresford was responsible for the much acclaimed film, “Breaker Morant” (1980) which was about the court-martial of Australian soldiers during the Boer War, and he won an Academy Award in 1990 for best picture with his 1989 movie, “Driving Miss Daisy”, which dramatised the relationship between an African-American chauffeur and an elderly Jewish woman, wanting to understand and appreciate each other. “Driving Miss Daisy” won four Academy Awards, and Beresford wrote the story behind this movie, as well as directing the film.
“The Travellers” is a warm, insightful, and revealing comedy drama about the complexities of old age and the problems of returning to one’s family after a very long time away. The film is set in small-town regional Australia and is thoroughly Australian in character. Stephen’s return to his roots becomes an emotionally charged journey for him, as he confronts the eccentricities of his elderly father, Fred (Bryan Brown), and relationships with the rest of his family. Past attachments include involvement with Nikki, his sympathetic sister (Susie Porter), and with present and past romantic lovers.
The movie is a welcome return to form by Bruce Beresford, and it reasserts his status as an established, respected Australian film Director. Beresford deftly directs this movie by astutely combining poignant interactions with comic drama, and he directs the film to ensure that solid dramatic tension effortlessly accompanies comic intent. The movie is impressively insightful, poignant and well-controlled. The film does not create the dramatic urgency that so effectively characterised “Driving Miss Daisy”, but viewers will know instantly that the same Director is back at work.
Peter Sheehan, an Associate of Jesuit Media