Faraway Downs is a refurbished version of the original film, Australia, which was released in 2008. Hulu released this film in six episodes, which briefly touches upon the history of the land down under. The movie also touched upon the racism faced by the blacks and Aboriginals of Australia at the hands of the colonizers. The streaming giant took this movie and delivered a series that had scenes that were not initially included in the film. The original film itself was two hours and forty-five minutes long. However, in the series, many new scenes were added to push the narrative forward, and there were a lot of changes in the plotline as well.
Spoilers Ahead
Since Australia is a movie, unlike Faraway Downs, the writer and the director had to depend on a time-bound screenplay. There is an elaborate scene in the show involving Lady Sarah’s landing in Australia, which...
Spoilers Ahead
Since Australia is a movie, unlike Faraway Downs, the writer and the director had to depend on a time-bound screenplay. There is an elaborate scene in the show involving Lady Sarah’s landing in Australia, which...
- 11/28/2023
- by Smriti Kannan
- Film Fugitives
Faraway Downs is an Australian period drama about a certain lady who visited the land down under seeking to finalize a sale of her husband’s ranch and bring him back to the UK. Her situation changes when she learns of the politics of the country and the kind of rampant racism that goes along with it. Directed by Baz Luhrmann, this six-episode show was based on the film Australia, which was released in 2008. There is no reason for this film to be re-released by Hulu. This article will take the readers through the journey the woman took and how it changed her perspective on life.
Spoilers Ahead
Why was Lady Sarah Ashley in Australia?
Lady Sarah Ashley was the wife of Lord Maitland Ashley. He was in Australia running a cattle ranch and reaping profits from it, and Lady Sarah was frustrated with her husband’s unwillingness to leave Australia.
Spoilers Ahead
Why was Lady Sarah Ashley in Australia?
Lady Sarah Ashley was the wife of Lord Maitland Ashley. He was in Australia running a cattle ranch and reaping profits from it, and Lady Sarah was frustrated with her husband’s unwillingness to leave Australia.
- 11/27/2023
- by Smriti Kannan
- Film Fugitives
Plot: The story centers on an English aristocrat, Lady Sarah Ashley, who travels halfway across the world to confront her wayward husband and sell an unusual asset: a million-acre cattle ranch in the Australian Outback called ‘Faraway Downs’. Following the death of her husband, a ruthless Australian cattle baron, King Carney, plots to take her land and she reluctantly joins forces with a rough-hewn cattle drover to protect her ranch. The sweeping adventure romance is explored through the eyes of young Nullah, a bi-racial Indigenous Australian child caught up in the government’s draconian racial policy now referred to as the “Stolen Generations.” Together the trio experiences four life-altering years, a love affair between Lady Ashley and the Drover, and the unavoidable impact of World War II on Northern Australia.
Review: Baz Luhrmann’s films have always defied filmmaking norms. From Romeo + Juliet to Elvis, Moulin Rouge to The Great Gatsby,...
Review: Baz Luhrmann’s films have always defied filmmaking norms. From Romeo + Juliet to Elvis, Moulin Rouge to The Great Gatsby,...
- 11/22/2023
- by Alex Maidy
- JoBlo.com
Australian actor David Wenham last had a notable role in Australia, playing the villainous landowner Neil Fletcher who didn't care much that an entire generation of half-white, half-Aboriginal children were being raised as orphans right in his city. Now maybe he'll have a chance to see the other side of things in Oranges and Sunshine, a British drama about a social worker who discovered in 1987 that that government was deporting thousands of children from the U.K. to Australia. Variety announced that Wenham, Emily Watson and Hugo Weaving have signed on to the film, with Watson presumably playing real-life social worker Margaret Humphreys. No word on who Weaving and Wenham will play in director Jim Loach's directorial debut, but if Wenham is once again on the team against orphans, we might have to wonder if there's some typecasting involved.
- 12/4/2009
- cinemablend.com
Blu-Ray Rating: 2.5/5.0 Chicago – Visionary director Baz Luhrmann would probably like people to watch his grandiose, old-fashioned, epic “Australia” on the big screen, but HD Blu-Ray seems made for this vibrant, colorful director. At first. This Luhrmann fan, like a lot of people who loved “Strictly Ballroom,” “Romeo + Juliet,” and “Moulin Rouge!” was let down by Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman in theaters and the disappointment continues on Blu-Ray.
Before we go anywhere, “Australia” is primarily a sensory experience. It has sweeping cinematography, dozens of locations, elaborate costumes, and Luhrmann’s rainbow-esque color scheme. You won’t see blues and reds much brighter or a picture much more vibrant than you will on Fox’s “Australia” release but it’s still not right. There an odd flatness to the transfer, something not uncommon to Fox Bd.
Australia was released on Blu-Ray on March 3rd, 2009.
Photo credit: Fox
The picture for “Australia” is missing depth,...
Before we go anywhere, “Australia” is primarily a sensory experience. It has sweeping cinematography, dozens of locations, elaborate costumes, and Luhrmann’s rainbow-esque color scheme. You won’t see blues and reds much brighter or a picture much more vibrant than you will on Fox’s “Australia” release but it’s still not right. There an odd flatness to the transfer, something not uncommon to Fox Bd.
Australia was released on Blu-Ray on March 3rd, 2009.
Photo credit: Fox
The picture for “Australia” is missing depth,...
- 3/5/2009
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Australia DVD reviewby Peter Dimako, Editor A remarkably touching epic and one of the most undeservedly underrated films of 2008. Baz Luhrmann’s epic drama “Australia” is a gargantuan feat, capturing elements of romance, oppression, war and drama and leaving one ultimately emotionally satisfied. Vibrant and adventurous, the film quickly gets off the mark with a prestigious cattle farmer being murdered. This is told by the very talented Brandon Walters as Nullah, an Aborigine youth who states that his grandfather King George (David Gulpilil) is thought to have committed said act. Still, with murder in the picture, the film manages to get off to a cheery and lighthearted start. We meet English aristocrat Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) who journeys to Australia finding her loved one slain at their Faraway Downs cattle station. At the station, she quickly realizes that her husband’s first in command, a sinister Neil Fletcher (David Wenham...
- 2/17/2009
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Chicago – Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and newcomer Brandon Walters star in Baz Luhrmann’s “Australia”: a sweeping, grand epic in the tradition of “Gone With the Wind” that gets away from its talented director, the writers he worked with and the team he hired to film his passion project.
Luhrmann and co-writers Stuart Beattie, Ronald Harwood and Richard Flanagan take an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach to adding elements of classic romance, historical epic, cultural statement and war movie into their sprawling vision of some of Australia’s most formative years.
Rating: 2.5/5.0 Taken separately, those divergent elements in “Australia” nearly work. When the film is viewed as an entire experience, the final combined product is ultimately unsatisfying and woefully disjointed.
Read Brian Tallerico’s full review of “Australia” in our reviews section.
View our 23-image “Australia” slideshow. The first half of “Australia” details the formation of a rather unusual family made up...
Luhrmann and co-writers Stuart Beattie, Ronald Harwood and Richard Flanagan take an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach to adding elements of classic romance, historical epic, cultural statement and war movie into their sprawling vision of some of Australia’s most formative years.
Rating: 2.5/5.0 Taken separately, those divergent elements in “Australia” nearly work. When the film is viewed as an entire experience, the final combined product is ultimately unsatisfying and woefully disjointed.
Read Brian Tallerico’s full review of “Australia” in our reviews section.
View our 23-image “Australia” slideshow. The first half of “Australia” details the formation of a rather unusual family made up...
- 11/26/2008
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Amazing how a film stuffed with romance, action and wartime history only leads to utter frustration. More cinematic soup than epic moviemaking, director/co-writer Baz Luhrmann may claim something for every taste in his sprawling adventure “Australia” but he fails at each attempted genre. "Australia," arguably the biggest movie of the holiday season, is also a film of missed opportunities, few laughs, insufficient romance and clumsy action. For Luhrmann, director of the wonderful musical "Moulin Rouge!" and the romantic and hip "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet," “Australia” is the type of costly, creative misstep that derails careers. English aristocrat Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) travels to Australia in 1939 and partners with a horseman and cattle rancher nicknamed "The Drover" (Hugh Jackman). Together, they will work together to save the ranch she inherited from her late husband by driving her cattle to the port city of Darwin and selling the beef to the Australian Army.
- 11/26/2008
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Amazing how a film stuffed with romance, action and wartime history only leads to utter frustration. More cinematic soup than epic moviemaking, director/co-writer Baz Luhrmann may claim something for every taste in his sprawling adventure “Australia” but he fails at each attempted genre. "Australia," arguably the biggest movie of the holiday season, is also a film of missed opportunities, few laughs, insufficient romance and clumsy action. For Luhrmann, director of the wonderful musical "Moulin Rouge!" and the romantic and hip "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet," “Australia” is the type of costly, creative misstep that derails careers. English aristocrat Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) travels to Australia in 1939 and partners with a horseman and cattle rancher nicknamed "The Drover" (Hugh Jackman). Together, they will work together to save the ranch she inherited from her late husband by driving her cattle to the port city of Darwin and selling the beef to the Australian Army.
- 11/26/2008
- Upcoming-Movies.com
AUSTRALIAby Steve Ramos, Writer 'Australia’ is a disaster of blockbuster proportions Amazing how a film stuffed with romance, action and wartime history only leads to utter frustration. More cinematic soup than epic moviemaking, director/co-writer Baz Luhrmann may claim something for every taste in his sprawling adventure “Australia” but he fails at each attempted genre. "Australia," arguably the biggest movie of the holiday season, is also a film of missed opportunities, few laughs, insufficient romance and clumsy action. For Luhrmann, director of the wonderful musical "Moulin Rouge!" and the romantic and hip "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet," “Australia” is the type of costly, creative misstep that derails careers. English aristocrat Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) travels to Australia in 1939 and partners with a horseman and cattle rancher nicknamed "The Drover" (Hugh Jackman). Together, they will work together to save the ranch she inherited from her late husband by driving her...
- 11/26/2008
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Amazing how a film stuffed with romance, action and wartime history only leads to utter frustration. More cinematic soup than epic moviemaking, director/co-writer Baz Luhrmann may claim something for every taste in his sprawling adventure “Australia” but he fails at each attempted genre. "Australia," arguably the biggest movie of the holiday season, is also a film of missed opportunities, few laughs, insufficient romance and clumsy action. For Luhrmann, director of the wonderful musical "Moulin Rouge!" and the romantic and hip "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet," “Australia” is the type of costly, creative misstep that derails careers. English aristocrat Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) travels to Australia in 1939 and partners with a horseman and cattle rancher nicknamed "The Drover" (Hugh Jackman). Together, they will work together to save the ranch she inherited from her late husband by driving her cattle to the port city of Darwin and selling the beef to the Australian Army.
- 11/26/2008
- Upcoming-Movies.com
AUSTRALIAby Eric Sloss, Writer The epic is a dying breed in Hollywood. Epics usually are expensive to make with long running times, which equates to less screenings during the day. This puts even more pressure for films like this to have big weekends to justify the large budgets. Director Baz Luhrmann is ready to buck these odds with his latest film, “Australia”. Luhrmann’s last film was the exhilarating and sometimes dizzying “Moulin Rouge!”. Luhrmann is not shy about what he puts on the screen. He usually throws everything into the mix and sees what sticks. This is can be an asset and a debit at the same time. His movies are never boring though. “Australia” is a master work from Luhrmann that works on many levels. With a running time of over 2 ½ hours, it covers a lot of ground but never drags. It begins in September of 1939 in the Northern Territory,...
- 11/26/2008
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman in Australia
Photo: 20th Century Fox Australia is a film that is a drastic miscalculation on the part of director/co-writer Baz Luhrmann. This much stalled project once starred Russell Crowe, then Heath Ledger and ultimately Hugh Jackman and has taken forever to get to the screen, and once you it you will know why. This is a daunting effort as Luhrmann hopes to make a film as grand as the likes of Gone With the Wind and Lawrence of Arabia all while telling a love story mixed in with the tragic racial policies imposed on half-white/half-Aboriginal children as they are stripped from their families in an effort to "breed the black out of them". The idea is as offensive as it sounds, but in Australia's attempts to make sure the film is as much a love story as it is (more, actually) a...
Photo: 20th Century Fox Australia is a film that is a drastic miscalculation on the part of director/co-writer Baz Luhrmann. This much stalled project once starred Russell Crowe, then Heath Ledger and ultimately Hugh Jackman and has taken forever to get to the screen, and once you it you will know why. This is a daunting effort as Luhrmann hopes to make a film as grand as the likes of Gone With the Wind and Lawrence of Arabia all while telling a love story mixed in with the tragic racial policies imposed on half-white/half-Aboriginal children as they are stripped from their families in an effort to "breed the black out of them". The idea is as offensive as it sounds, but in Australia's attempts to make sure the film is as much a love story as it is (more, actually) a...
- 11/24/2008
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
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