The Current Cinema - KANGAROO ISLAND (Dir:Tim Piper, Sc: Sally Gifford, Australia, 2024)

Rebecca Breeds, Erik Thomson, Adelaide Clemens, Kangaroo Island

We've already had one Australian movie this year about the kids coming back home. Birthright was tough, smart, risky and its source material, ( I figured the Coens, Noah Hawley's TV Fargo and maybe, probably unlikely, even a nod to Miike Takashi's provocations) was miles away from TV soap with its contrivances, sentimentality and every so often giant leaps of scripting to move things along.

The latter is what struck me about the origins of Kangaroo Island,  produced in South Australia with money from the Adelaide Film Festival which premiered the film last year. It's a debut feature from Tim Piper from a script by Sally Gifford who also has a role in the film.

Lou (Rebecca Breeds) is living the desperate life of an alcoholic failed actress in Los Angeles. An unfortunate run in with a cop sees her on a plane back home courtesy of a ticket sent to her by her father (Erik Thomson). She ends up back on Kangaroo Island and we cue a good running gag about her 'lost' luggage. Then the scripting really starts.... Sister Freya (Adelaide Clemens) has  gone evangelical Christian and cant wait to slip Lou a tome about Jesus, ex-boyfriend Ben (Joel Jackson) has married Freya but is a philanderer. There's a car accident that moves the plot along and later in a throw away we learn the ex-boyfriend has gambled away the family money hence sister has leased the incredibly photogenic property to a religious cult...and (spoiler alert) her old man is actually dying which is why he gave Lou the ticket. 

There's a joke somewhere about Home and Away  as well.