The Australian outback can be a tough place at the best of times. Image it in colonial times of the 1890s. Your a wife at home with no one around for miles raising four young kids with another on the way. Unpredictable wildlife surrounds your isolated cabin with ne'er-do-wells roaming about. This reality for Molly Johnson (Leah Purcell) as she waits for the return of her husband Joe from up in the hills herding sheep. The nearest town Everton is just getting off the ground. Her oldest 12 year old Danny (Malachi Dower-Roberts) is the defacto man of the house looking out for his younger siblings. Danny is inquisitive and looks at his Mom with awe. Especially at how proficient she is with a rifle. Their new lawman Sargent Nate Clintoff (Sam Reid ) and his activist writer wife Louisa (Jessica De Gouw) arrive at the Johnston cabin exhausted and hungry having underestimated the Outback almost to their peril. Molly offers them food from a recent to wild boar killing. In exchange, they take Molly's four children to town while she remains at home set to give birth on her own. Yada (Rob Collins) an escaped Aboriginal prisoner arrives on the scene to assist with the birth in exchange for food and shelter. Joe's colleagues soon show up looking for him and their interaction with Yada does not go well.
This film is a passion project for Leah Purcell. Her involvement began with a stage play followed by a novel then this screenplay reimagined from a female Aboriginal perspective. The outback itself serves as a main character as it often does in these Australian colonial Westerns. The harshness and unpredictability of the land itself and the widely varying weather are all participants in the story. Cinematographer Mark Warham takes full advantage of the expansive canvas at his disposal. The original source material is Henry Lawson's 1892 renewed novel The Drover's Wife. In Lawson's book, the settlers are the heroes beating back the Indigenous Peoples who are depicted as dangerous heathens. Purcell changes the focus here bringing in the feminist point of view though Louisa who big on exploring the trauma caused to women who regularly suffer beatings from their husbands.
Sargent Clintoff is fresh in town when he has a case of a murdered family to solve. Yada's picture is posted as a wanted fugitive as the Sargent also has to navigate the politics of Everton. Clintoff worried about Molly being on her own with a killer loose sends his timid Trooper Leslie (Benedict Hardie) down to her cabin. Another encounter that doesn't go well follows. The plot begins to clear with the future looking murkier for our protagonist. She is on the receiving end from just about everyone that passes through. The main exception is Yada who the authorities would consider a dangerous element. Molly is a fierce frontierswoman who is well equipped to survive off the land. Her ferocity is captured completely by Purcell. It's the multiple interlopers and combative relationships that are the source of her problems that eventually become insurmountable in the end.
*** Out of four.
The Legend of Molly Johnson | Leah Purcell | Australia | 2021 | 109 Minutes.
Tags: Outback, 1890s, Drover, Aboriginal, Fugitive, Child Birth, Rape, Physical Abuse, Wild Boar.
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