Last Ride

Director: Glendyn Ivin
Cast: Hugo Weaving, Tom Russell and Anita Hegh
Releasing in cinemas: 2 July 2009
Rated: M

Father-hood

Maybe things aren’t so dire in the Australian film industry after all. Hot on the heels of the excellent Disgrace comes another startling Australian film in the form of Glendyn Ivin’s debut feature, Last Ride. Like Disgrace, this film is adapted from a book, Denise Young’s The Last Ride; and also makes astonishing use of the landscape.

The film is essentially shown from the point of view of Chook (Tom Russell), the child protagonist of the piece. It opens in a scrap yard and we (like Chook) have little idea what’s going on. We soon discover that Kev (Hugo Weaving), the man who’s with him at the scrap yard, is his father. Their next move is to jump on a bus from Broken Hill. They stop in a small town where they meet up with Maryanne (Anita Hegh), a social worker who helped Kev when he was in prison – and an old flame. Kev tells Maryanne they’re on their way to Adelaide; but with precious little in the way of money or food, it looks like being something of an arduous journey. A series of incidents however soon see Kev and Chook on the road – and on the run.

That takes them into the main part of the film; a journey through the Australian outback during which the reasons for Kev’s flight are revealed and the already-strained relationship between father and son is tested to its limits.

The film is essentially a two-hander with the focus squarely on Kev and Chook as they try to navigate both physically and emotionally through the predicament in which they find themselves. I mentioned the use of landscape, and it’s truly spectacular. Ivin’s visual mastery of the harsh outback environment is verging on the wondrous at times; and certainly on a par with, say, Rolf de Heer’s The Tracker. The landscape in a sense becomes the “third” character in the story, underlying and informing the human characters’ actions.

So far as the story itself is concerned, it’s told in a rather elliptical style, with fragments of information revealed every so often as the film progresses until the truth is revealed. Just what that truth is I won’t disclose of course, but suffice to say it doesn’t make for comfortable viewing. Mac Gudgeon has done an excellent job in translating Denise Young’s novel to the big screen. Perhaps the only quibble is that the ending might be a little too neat to be completely satisfying.

Hugo Weaving, as you might expect, dominates the film. His commanding performance overshadows those around him (as you might expect) and he creates in Kev one of the more complex characters of the Australian screen in recent times. Young Tom Russell makes a fine fist of things as the vulnerable but determined Chook and certainly complements Weaving’s performance. Of the other characters, few get much time to show their chops, but Anita Hegh as Maryanne and John Brumpton as Max make an impression.

While Australian film still has a way to go, the signs are there of a new blossoming of creative talent in this country. The noticeable shift away from pure genre to well-crafted stories is undoubtedly partly responsible; but also a new breed of filmmakers who are prepared to take a few risks and not necessarily pander to the lowest common denominator is arguably emerging. Last Ride is part of the movement, and an important part at that.

David Edwards

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