The Drover’s Wife

Director: Leah Purcell
Starring: Leah Purcell, Rob Collins, Sam Reid, Jessica De Gouw, Nicholas Hope and Benedict Hardie
Distributor: Roadshow Films
Runtime: 108 mins. Reviewed in May 2022
Reviewer: Peter W Sheehan

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Rating notes: Strong violence

This Australian story tells of an Outback Indigenous woman who leads an isolated life with her children while her husband is away for long periods of time. Leah Purcell directs, writes, and takes the leading role in the film.

The film’s plot is based on an 1892 short story, The Drover’s Wife by Henry Lawson, about a lonely woman, Molly Johnson (Purcell), who leads an isolated existence on an Outback farm in northern Australia. Her cattle-droving husband, Joe, is away for lengthy periods of time. The film also owes strong allegiance to an award-winning stage play of Lawson’s story written by Purcell, a Goa, Goa, Gunggari, Wakka Wakka Murri woman from Queensland. She performed the play in 2016, and released a book of the same name in 2019. The film was shot in the Snowy Mountains area of New South Wales, and Purcell was awarded the Jury Grand Prize at the Asia Pacific Screen awards for the film in 2021.

The fierce struggle of a lonely woman emerges as a key dramatic theme in the movie, that is elaborated creatively as the film unfolds tensely. Molly is heavily pregnant when impending crises impel her to do everything she can to protect her children. The film powerfully confronts the history of racial violence in Australia and focuses especially on racial and domestic abuse. The film pointedly addresses colonial happenings in the subjugation of Indigenous peoples: Molly is the wife of a man who has let his wife fend for herself, and she exists outside a society that offers her little protection. She fights back against terrible injustice, and is forced to take the blame.

This ambitious movie is formatted in Western style, and is anchored to an outstanding performance by Purcell. The cinematography of Australia’s Outback scenery is exceptional. Sexism and racism raise their vicious heads as Molly’s life is linked to the injustices of the past. The movie cleverly uses the traditional features of Western outback culture to convey confronting messages about female victimisation and oppression.

Sergeant Nate Clintoff (Reid) is assigned to enforce British law in Molly’s home town, and he comes to Molly’s farm with his educated wife Louisa (De Gouw) in friendship, and attracted by the scent of cooking food. The two visitors query the unexplained absences of Molly’s husband, and, suspicious of what is happening, Clintoff states that the ‘land needs law, not a moral compass’. A shackled, wounded, Indigenous fugitive story-teller, Yadaka (Collins), also arrives at the farmhouse, looking for food, and he is on the run from authorities in the nearby town. Yadaka and Molly forge a friendship based on shared memories, but Yadaka is implicated in the murder investigation that Clintoff is pursuing, and Molly is linked to the disappearance of her husband.

Yadaka arrives at the farmhouse as Molly goes into labour, saving Molly’s life when the birth goes wrong. He spends time with Molly, and the film accrues power as it cumulatively reveals Molly’s resilience and strength. Nate and Yadaka both have an impact on Molly’s life in different ways. The film becomes a revealing reimagining of past events from both an Indigenous and a white perspective. It offers a harsh depiction of unjust treatment of Indigenous peoples in the late 19th century, and provides a powerful account of how Indigenous people have been terribly mistreated. The film intensifies violence (including rape) as it proceeds, and using competing narrative plot-lines, it becomes a multi-layered story with wide racial sweep. As with The Nightingale (2018) by Jennifer Kent, it is a telling indictment of white supremacy that tragically and powerfully confronts the violent realities of Australia’s frontier history, and Purcell cements her reputation as an exceptional talent. She has written, directed, and taken the lead role in a remarkable Australian film.