My Brilliant Career
Directed by Gillian Armstrong
Written by Eleanor Whitcombe from a novel by Miles Franklin
1979/Australia
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
Sybylla: I can’t lose myself in somebody else’s life, when I haven’t lived my own yet.
There are so few good female coming-of-age films. This is one.
The film is set around the turn of the 20th Century. Sybylla Melvyn (Judy Davis) lives with her parents and many siblings in the outback of Australia. Her father is a drunkard and her mother is thoroughly worn-out. Everybody works hard except Sybylla who practices the piano and daydreams about an illustrious career in some kind of artistic field. She drives her parents to distraction. Finally, her salvation comes when her Grandma Bossier (Aileen Britton) invites her to live with her and her grown children at her palatial estate.
It turns out that Sybylla’s mother married beneath her class. Grandma’s main idea seems to be getting Sybylla married off to someone rich and “suitable”. But Sybylla thinks marriage would only interfere with her intended and as yet undetermined “career”.
She spends a lot of time wingeing about how ugly she is until her Aunt Helen takes her in hand. Ultimately, Sybylla is proposed to by a wealthy Englishman. She has an easy time rejecting him because she doesn’t like him.
She meets handsome young Harry Beecham (Sam Neill) when she accepts an invitation to visit his Aunt Gussie (Patricia Kennedy). Sybylla flirts wildly with him. They fall in love. Can Sybylla stay true to her dream?
This movie looks gorgeous throughout with beautiful location cinematography. For the first part of it, I found Davis’s character quite annoying. She acts like the original Manic Pixie Dream Girl with her tricks and teasing. But adversity makes her grow up and I ended with that feeling of satisfaction I get from a really good movie. The acting is uniformly wonderful. Davis is absolutely on fire.
The film was nominated for a Best Costume Design Oscar.
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