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Sue Brooks makes Australian films for Australian audiences. Just as the groundbreaking Road to Nhill (1997) or the romantic tragedy of Japanese Story (2003) were distilled through the dusty reality of the outback, so it is with Subdivision, a film so entrenched in the vernacular you half expect a Geek chorus yelling Oi Oi Oi from the sidelines. Non-indigenous audiences will be in need of subtitles. In swapping the desert for Queensland’s tranquil Hervey Bay, Brooks has had something of a cinematic sea change in this classical story of generational change.
Digger (a suitably crusty Gary Sweet) builds houses and wants no truck with out-of-town developers. Meanwhile his son Jack sees a different kind of future linked to their new ways of doing business, and their easy-on-the-eye marketing manager (Brooke Satchwell). Conflict deepens when Jack and Digger go head to head, deeper still when money dries up. For as Digger says more than once, we know where this is going and therein Brooks dilemma: how to give a fairly routine story that essential point of difference. In short, it was an issue not satisfactorily resolved.
Subdivision is, ironically, rather less than the sum of its parts. And there are many parts, most of which have a distressing tendency to collapse if not disappear altogether (Digger’s infatuation with Blue Heelers for instance). A script overburdened with situational circumstance undercuts the bigger themes Brooks is trying to steer us toward; notions of team work, mateship and how change is essential to the survival of small communities across the country. They’re big Australian ideas lost in the day to day. Perhaps that sea change softened her stance for Subdivision lacks both the grit and clarity we’d come to expect.
// COLIN FRASER
moviereview colin fraser film movie australia review critic flicks