The wide-open spaces of Australian outback are a significant metaphor in this movie for the beautiful openness of two people from very different cultures toward one another.
The movie can be seen in many ways...as a road adventure, as a romance, as a landscape of relationship...but for me above all it is the powerful emotional impact that love, transcending differences, can have on our lives. The simple story of an Australian geologist driving a Japanese businessman through the strange and starkly beautiful Australian land is the background setting for this movingly created connection of two people. Toni Colette gives a bravura performance as the realistic, yet vulnerable geologist and Gotara Tsumashima is fine as the visiting businessman...but the movie belongs to Colette.
The movie can be seen in many ways...as a road adventure, as a romance, as a landscape of relationship...but for me above all it is the powerful emotional impact that love, transcending differences, can have on our lives. The simple story of an Australian geologist driving a Japanese businessman through the strange and starkly beautiful Australian land is the background setting for this movingly created connection of two people. Toni Colette gives a bravura performance as the realistic, yet vulnerable geologist and Gotara Tsumashima is fine as the visiting businessman...but the movie belongs to Colette.