Apparently this was released in its native country of Australia in December of 1982, but not until January in the U.S. Too bad, because I think it's the kind of movie the Academy would have eaten up if it had been released during Oscar season. Not that I particularly think it would deserve a Best Picture nomination or anything, but I think the Academy might have. Still, an entire year after it first played in American theaters, Linda Hunt was so memorable in her role that she won the Best Supporting Actress award. She plays a very small Asian man. It's stunt casting, pure and simple, but, man, if it doesn't work. I knew about her work going in (and she is why I was interested in the film in the first place), so she couldn't quite disappear into the role for me, but she is quite convincing. A lot of the reason it works is because the role is so well written. In fact, Billy Kwan is the character with whom the audience most identifies, despite being kind of on the edge of the main action. It is his story you walk away remembering. Not to say that the rest of the film isn't good because it is. Mel Gibson plays an Australian reporter who hopes to get his big break during a revolutionary period in Indonesia. As the title implies, it is very dangerous there, even before President Sukarno is overthrown. Gibson is fine, if far from great. Sigourney Weaver plays his British love interest. She's fine, but doesn't have a lot to do. My second favorite performance in the film comes from Altman veteran Michael Murphy as an obnoxious American reporter who likes to go whoring. The story is good and very gripping. I think The Killing Fields told a very similar story even better a couple of years later (for which an actual Asian man won an Academy Award, though I don't say that to diminish Hunt's work here).
Review of The Year of Living Dangerously
