I like the main character in Beautiful Kate.
It took me a while to figure out what I could say about this movie without being to spoilery, without only talking about the mountains and the kangaroos, but I realize what was holding me back is that I like Kate. In much the same way I felt about halfway through reading Lolita for the first time and I found myself empathizing with-and rooting for Humbert Humbert I realized that the subject matter in the film didn’t disturb me as much as it should because for most of the film Kate got what she wanted and was happy.
Ben Mendelsohn and Scott O’Donnel do a fantastic job of not overplaying the angst and self-recrimination that Ned feels throughout the story, and as far as curmudgenly parents go Bryan Brown made the father’s character so much more than a pair of soiled pajama bottoms.
The relationships between the children in this family isolated out in the wilds of Walumbi become a bit bent by the isolation-but at the end we see they aren’t all entirely broken.
PN grade – B-
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