Nicole Kidman

Quick – name an Australian movie.

I’m willing to bet you said Mad Max, or maybe Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, or Muriel’s Wedding. Maybe you thought about Chopper or even Romper Stomper. Happy Feet, perhaps.

Now, name an Australian actor.

Okay…here goes… Hugh Jackman Chris Hemsworth Heath Ledger Cate Blanchett Eric Bana Guy Pearce Margot Robbie Nicole Kidman Jason Clarke Rose Byrne Naomi Watts Russell Crowe Rebel Wilson Yvonne Strahovski Toni Collette Hugo Weaving Joel Edgerton Geoffrey Rush Sam Worthington Errol Flynn Mia Wasilowska Mel Gibson

The old cliché in Hollywood is “The Brits are coming!” when it should really be “the Aussies are already here!” I find it fascinating that Australia has, since the Eighties, acted as a fruitful vein for Hollywood to mine for high-level talent. It’s especially interesting given how few Australian movies break through into the wider consciousness of cinema-goers. All of those big names. They had to get their start somewhere. Usually, it was that awful soap-opera, Neighbours.

It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that some members of this host of big Aussie stars sometimes return home and pop up in small indie movies. Hugo Weaving, when he isn’t distracted by the Wachowskis or Peter Jackson, does it all the time. Nicole Kidman does it too.

Born in Hawaii to Australian parents, Kidman and her family returned to Australia when she was a child. After showing interest and promise in acting at school, she attended the same theatres as Naomi Watts and made her film debut aged 16. Kidman rapidly gained recognition and won awards and broke through to the big time, alongside Sam Neill and Billy Zane, in the thriller Dead Calm. Hollywood came calling and she was cast alongside future husband Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder and she was set. She deserved it – it’s rare to find a poor performance from Kidman. Her filmography is long and varied. There’s a ton of stuff in it I haven’t heard of, much less seen, including Strangerland.

Strangerland, released in 2015, is a drama about the Parker family, who have moved to the Australian desert town of Nathgari to escape their troubles. Kidman plays the mother, Catherine. Joseph Fiennes is her pharmacist husband, Matthew, and they have two children, Lily (Maddison Brown) and Tom (Nicholas Hamilton). Things are not easy for them. Tom goes for night-time strolls around the town and its surrounding desert, and Lily, aged 15, is sexually active with several older men. They are all unhappy – Tom blames Lily for the family being in the dead-end town. Matthew is a ball of barely-contained rage and Catherine is a bit of a mess.

One night, Matthew watches Lily follow Tom as they leave the house and chooses to do nothing about it. They don’t return that night and don’t show up to school in the morning. Catherine becomes worried, the more so when a dust storm hits the town, and she argues with Matthew over contacting the police. Matthew doesn’t want the family’s business to become public knowledge but Catherine reports the children missing against his wishes.

She meets detective David Rae (Hugo Weaving) and he finds in the police records that Lily has been reported missing before. He also discovers that Lily had a sexual relationship with a teacher, who Matthew later assaulted, and this is the business the Parkers chose to run from by coming to Nathgari.

Matthew chooses to focus on his job rather than to help Catherine search for their children. Rae’s investigations reveal Lily’s sexual activities. Catherine discovers Lily’s diaries, which confirm Rae’s findings, and he agrees not to show it to Matthew. Rae shreds the portions of the diary which connect her to Burtie, a mentally handicapped handyman who is the brother of Rae’s girlfriend.

Meanwhile, the town searches for the kids and Matthew and Catherine’s relationship lurches from problem to problem. Matthew, as is his wont, chooses to confront his fears with violence, driving all night to threaten Lily’s former teacher and assaulting Burtie. Catherine, on the other hand, deals with her fear with sex. She tries to seduce Burtie and later Rae but is rebuffed both times.

Matthew drives out into the desert and finds Tom collapsed and nearly dead. He rescues his son but Tom won’t reveal what happened to Lily at first. Tom eventually says that Lily got into a car with strangers. Catherine breaks under the strain of the hatred of the townsfolk and repeated rejections and wanders out into the desert, where she loses her clothes and returns, confused and naked, to walk through the centre of town. Matthew finds her and takes care of her.

They confess their secrets to each other – Catherine, about the diary, and Matthew about seeing the children leave. They console one other and Matthew breaks down and expresses regret over his choice. As regards what happened to Lily? We are never told.

This is not a well-regarded film, which I think is not fully warranted. While it is a film featuring the search for missing children, it is not a suspense movie nor a thriller. The children’s disappearance is the impetus for what the film is really about, which is how stress and fear strip us of our higher functions to expose the insecurities underneath. It is also a film about toxic masculinity and how men find female sexuality threatening. It’s heavy stuff, thematically.

Strangerland, then, is a character-led film. Because of the thinness of the plot, the burden of keeping us viewers engaged falls on how effectively the actors do their jobs. Matthew is permanently on the edge of a violent outburst, especially at Lily and Catherine. He is resentful of his wife’s sexuality and terrified of Lily’s. He has no outlet for this rage until Burtie comes to talk to him and apologise. The film makes clear that the Parker’s marriage is under strain and that Matthew has no interest in Catherine. Fiennes’ performance is good. As one-note as Matthew’s character is, Fiennes manages to make him a pathetic figure, rather than a frightening one. Matthew seems perpetually haunted by something and in a state of constant discomfort.

Rae stands as a stark contrast to Matthew. Although Rae is a police officer, he is written – and performed – as a much more emotionally available and nuanced person. He chooses diplomacy over violence and is not threatened by the women in his life. Weaving is beyond reproach in his performance. Again, a simple character, played with no little nuance.

Kidman is the star of the show, though. Her strengths have always been in portraying women at their emotional limits, even if she has one or two ‘tics’ which mark her performances. In her Oscar-winning turn as Virginia Woolf, under considerable make-up, Kidman retained her signature wild-eyed stare and stress-flared nostrils. Not here, though. As Catherine, her style is much more naturalistic and, for the most part, restrained, up until those moments when the character’s sexuality breaks through her walls of reserve. Catherine is the heart and soul of the story, and Kidman is excellent, by turns brittle and then brazen and brittle again.

Tonally, Strangerland does its best to remain as restrained and repressed as possible. Maybe it’s an Australian thing. The script and direction demand very little in terms of histrionics from the leads until they reach their breaking points. I suspect in a British or American localisation of this story, with unaltered themes, the melodrama would be amped up to higher levels at a greater rate. I found the subdued approach of the script and direction to be an intriguing choice.

There is another interesting choice made by the director, Kim Farrant, and the writers, Fiona Seres and Michael Kinirons. Strangerland never takes an editorial standpoint on its most difficult topics. This is a story featuring adult men with who have slept with a child, and outside of a few wagged fingers and Matthew’s fury, Lily’s partners are never openly condemned. Matthew’s toxicity is also presented as simply something that exists. His violence, physical and emotional, lead to no consequences within the framework of the film. And Catherine’s actions, in her attempted seductions, result in no opprobrium.

These are all things which simply happened, with no judgment falling on them. No attempt is made to explain or excuse the actions of the characters. What made Catherine turn to sex as a method of validating herself? What’s the source of Matthew’s toxicity and violence? Why is Lily sexually adventurous? Arguably, this could be viewed as a problematic lack of psychological depth. It’s quite a brave stance to take by the standards of 2025, to allow the audience to reach their own conclusion or to simply entertain their own prejudices.

Besides the highlight of Kidman’s emotionally and literally naked performance, the film’s other great quality is its cinematography. Lit and shot by P. J. Dillon, who is now a fixture in premium TV drama cinematography, the film makes fantastic use of Australia’s outback as a backdrop. Dillon is happy to give us only a sliver of light on the horizon to see by, and it just works. Lovely photography, lovely.

Does Strangerland deserve to have reached so few people? No. While I’m confident the storyline and the manner of its presentation will be off-putting to those expecting something pacier or with a more defined moral stance, I enjoyed it. There is a moodiness to the visuals and the performances which appealed to me. I liked the way Farrant presents the story as a fait accompli. I like the lack of a real resolution. Yet these are the things which will prevent it from finding a wider audience, in the same way Strangerland only saw a limited release in the US. This is not a film for everyone. It’s a curio, to be sure, but one deserving of appreciation