Review: Tomorrow, When the War Began

 
Small-town farm girl Ellie (Caitlin Stasey) and her best friend Corrie (Rachel Hurd-Wood) decide to go on a camping trip in the bushland. Other teens are invited; tearaway Greek kid Homer (Deniz Akdeniz) who was once a childhood friend of Ellie’s, Corrie’s blokey boyfriend Kevin (Lincoln Lewis), pampered but insecure and ditzy beauty queen Fiona (Phoebe Tonkin), religious pacifist Robyn (Ashleigh Cummings), and introverted Asian kid Lee (Christopher Pang), who has a thing for Ellie. When their trip is over, the kids come back to a very changed town. Foreign invaders have taken over and rounded everyone up. Their families are nowhere to be seen, the streets are eerily unpopulated. Tanks and choppers are looming about, however. The teens, spurred on by headstrong Ellie, decide to band together and fight their foreign oppressors to save their families and their town. Colin Friels turns up as the one freely roaming adult they encounter, a local dentist. Andrew Ryan plays a local stoner kid who has been hiding out undetected at his house all by himself.

This Stuart Beattie (Aussie screenwriter of “Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of The Black Pearl” making his directorial debut) adaptation of the John Marsden bestseller is a curious case indeed. This is an adaptation of the first in a series of novels aimed at young adults, which are extremely popular. This film proved to be the biggest home-grown success at the local box-office for the year. I’m happy about that insofar as here’s an Aussie genre pic, a rare one, and also a box-office hit in its own country. We tend to stay the hell away from our own product. Hmmm, let’s think about why this flick might’ve been a success then. Actually, part of it would be the built-in audience who have read the books, but still, here’s an Aussie genre pic that might just be the proof I need to show that we clearly want to see more than arthouse ‘kitchen sink’ dramas and stupid comedies. So for that, I’m happy, especially since it looks to have been made to also appeal to an international market. I haven’t read the books and had barely heard of them before seeing the film (odd, given the first one came out in 1993 when I was thirteen. So I dunno how I avoided it), but having now seen this film, it really does make me wonder just what is going on here (and not just because it’s based on an acclaimed novel with one of the most grammatically awkward titles I’ve ever come across. What’s the sequel called, “Yesterday, The Day Two Days After the Day Before Today”?). I mean, I didn’t even really like this story back in 1985 when it was set in the US and called “Red Dawn”.

It’s an apt (if overused) comparison given the premises are almost identical, except “Red Dawn” at least had the balls to own up to its fascist Commie bashing by naming the villains as Russians (It was the Reagan era, don’t forget). Something tells me the “Red Dawn” connection alone (the novels as far as I know haven’t travelled far beyond Australia) will prevent this from working well overseas. Marsden didn’t specify the terrorists in his novels to any particular ethnicity or nationality and whilst that might work in novels (and indeed Marsden wasn’t just being a pussy like I suggested above, half-jokingly), it does not work on screen at all. Writer-director Beattie had to at least give the villains a vague ethnicity, as film is a largely visual medium. Thus one can see that the baddies here are vaguely Asian, thought by many to be Chinese, but I’d wager Indonesia is closer to the mark (given we’re talking about Australia). And so, whilst Beattie doesn’t indulge in too much of the fascist action heroics of “Red Dawn” (at least not in this first of presumably several films), there is still a vague sense of racism as the villains don’t ‘look’ like ‘us’, that is, they are different looking to most Caucasian Australians. Featuring a Greek and an Asian dude amongst the protagonists is barely compensation when the villains are clearly from some part of Asia and are a voiceless, one-dimensional, almost otherworldly presence in the film. So I ended up thinking about things that likely wouldn’t have concerned me as much with the book, which leaves more to one’s imagination. Here it’s pretty much spelled out for you on screen, and that’s the problem with adapting a book to the screen. They’re totally different mediums, and perhaps Beattie should’ve put more thought to that when decided to do the film, let alone adopt Marsden’s approach for representing the villains. I will say, though, that I rather liked the Expressionistic representation of the villains in so far as presenting them via their military hardware, choppers and the like. It gives the film a rather nightmarish visual depiction that rather appealed to me. I really don’t understand why Australia needs its own right-wing, fascist action flick (I’ve liked some of the 80s American ones, but that doesn’t mean anyone, especially Aussies need to be making them today), especially with the current (and increasingly hopeless) situation of Asylum Seekers in this country. Australia, despite our reputation at times for being racist (especially towards the original inhabitants of this land) are actually a fairly easy-going lot, and whether a right-wing or left-wing government is in charge, it’s been pretty moderate the last ten years or so. So why are we promoting ourselves with something like this? And who is really going to invade Australia anyway? Indonesia is probably the smartest bet, but even then, no one really cares about Australia to even bother, I’d wager. The only real invasion we’ve had is the one where the white fellas took the land from the Indigenous people back in 1788. Oh sorry, we’re not supposed to call that an invasion (I’m joking, I don’t like how our country was founded, but replacing ‘settlement’ with ‘invasion’ isn’t just political correctness it’s blatantly stupid and pedantic in the extreme).

If this is a pretty close approximation of Marsden’s text, then how on Earth did it become so popular and well-respected? And more importantly, how in the hell did this end up being popular amongst young adults? Well, actually that last one’s pretty easy to answer, as youngsters probably like stories where their own kind are seen as the heroes and adults are fairly absent. But who thought it was a good idea to aim this kind of reactionary fantasy at youngsters, especially when the majority of the violence and fascist politicising likely has to be excised (rendering the material, at least here, largely limp) since we’ve become a more multi-cultural society?

I found this a pretty confronting and alarming story to ponder from a political and cultural perspective, even with a lot of the more objectionable possibilities tastefully left out (unlike “Red Dawn”). That is, when I wasn’t completely bored stupid. You see, it’s not just the political and cultural side of this that bothers me, it’s the lack of believability in the situation, something that also plagued “Red Dawn” and just about every other film where youngsters play real-life action heroes. Just as I often find it very hard to see real, everyday people turning to vigilantism in many “Death Wish”-style crime flicks (especially those that take themselves so seriously), I found this teen-oriented situation even less plausible. I’ve never liked Colin Friels as an actor but his character here was appallingly written in my view, be it the fault of Marsden or Beattie. He’s the one adult that these kids manage to find, and in my view there is absolutely no way that he would simply leaves this kids unprotected by an adult. I hate kids and even I’d be responsible enough to shelter them as best as I could, but Colin? Nah, screw that, I’m gonna get the hell outta here. No adult would behave that way. None. Then again, this is the same story where said teens have been out camping away from their oldies, and when they find out that terrorists have taken over, their first course of action is to rescue the parents they were originally seeking refuge away from. Um...what? Sure, adults aren’t the only ones who have been rounded up, but still, it doesn’t seem to make sense to me.

The film also suffers from a massive lack of danger in regards to our protagonists. How they are able to avoid detection is truly ridiculous here given they never shut the hell up. I mean, they shout way too much for people trying not to get caught and presumably killed by terrorists. This is the last situation where you want to be raising your voice. It’s absolutely absurd at times in this regard, but then again we’re talking about terrorists who are worse aims than the dirty Commie Russkies in “Red Dawn”. They can’t hit a thing! I was actually taken out of this film very early and could never find a way back in. This is mostly due to the depiction of the teens and their relationships with one another. The whole set-up just didn’t work for me, because there was no way (on the evidence we get in the film) that Stasey’s farm girl would be friendly enough with Tonkin’s town rich girl, and Cummings’ pious, pacifist religious girl to invite them on a camping trip for the weekend. I just saw no connection between the Cummings and Tonkin characters and the rest, at least not early on. Maybe Marsden’s novel explains it better, but these people just didn’t seem like the kind of people who would hang out together. Teens are very choosey about who they associate with (from my recollections anyway), especially at school, and I’m surprised that it plays out this way given we’re talking about a much-loved text aimed at teens. Cummings’ character in particular would never be friends with any of these people, none of the others would be able to refrain from strangling her. She’s that irritating. I really hope this is just a case of a poor adaptation, otherwise I just don’t know what to make of it. I also call bullshit on any of these kids reading and loving “My Brilliant Career”, I bet few have heard of it, let alone the film version. So the point Beattie is obviously trying to make (pointing out that the book is always better, yes even the director of this film is aware of that), is rendered moot by an inappropriate choice of material. It isn’t plausible in this era of “Twilight” and “Harry Potter” and...books that aren’t  “Twilight” or “Harry Potter” and thus no one under 18 reads them.

There’s actually way too many characters here to keep track of, and indeed when two characters apparently went missing, I wasn’t aware of it, and didn’t know which ones were missing. That’s just a case of appalling character writing and plotting. Obviously adapting a book into a 100 minute film has its pitfalls and restrictions, but that’s no excuse for crap screenwriting. Stasey’s character is the only one afforded any depth whatsoever, with surprisingly enough, Hurd-Wood (the only internationally-known member of the young crop) easily getting the least character development, outside of maybe Lincoln Lewis, and at least he gets to do his best Steve McQueen late in the film. Hurd-Wood is just sorta ‘there’ (kinda like me in high school, come to think of it). Until Andrew Ryan’s stoner dude turns up, the only characters other than Stasey’s who really stand out are those played by Lincoln Lewis and Phoebe Tonkin, and that’s only because I know who those actors are. So early on, before the terrorist show up, the film is pretty unbearable because it is moving nowhere and there isn’t much in the way of character development. Lots of clockwatching ensues. A couple of these characters are definitely expendable in my opinion. I would’ve removed Miss Pacifist Judgmental Religious Zealot (Cummings, unbearable) and the Asian dude who gets shot and injured early on and is thus rendered completely freaking useless (Pang). Pang is also involved in the most amazingly underdeveloped romance of all-time with Stasey. Unless I blinked, their kissing scene just comes out of nowhere. Meanwhile, I would’ve made the stoner dude the main character, he’s hilarious, and sadly only turns up after about an hour. Ryan has a hoot in the role, getting inexplicably hilarious lines like ‘Woof woof. How funny are dogs?’.

The acting, for the most part is pretty good I must say, with several of the cast having experience on soaps. Hurd-Wood is one of the weakest, actually, but her character really doesn’t help her. She does do an impeccable Aussie accent to my ears, albeit more of a posh one, something that also goes for Stasey, playing the ‘farm girl’. I’ve always liked Stasey on “Neighbours” (No problem admitting it, I’ve watched the series on and off since about 1988, though currently I’m on an ‘off’ period), and she’s definitely the standout here. She gets an annoyingly heavy-handed (and strangely intermittent) voice-over narration that sounds too wise and articulate (and ‘literary’) for someone her age, but she’s still quite good. She certainly gets the smart and brave parts of her character down quite well indeed. Ryan (who looks like a mini Brendan Cowell) is hilarious but not in the film enough, so hopefully we’ll get more of him in future. Lincoln Lewis (son of Queensland rugby league legend Wally) comes across as a bit of a ‘party boy’ douche in real-life, but he’s definitely got better acting chops and personality than most of his ilk. He does appear to have downed a Red Bull or two before each take, though, and his character isn’t as prominent as he should’ve been. Phoebe Tonkin, I must confess, is one of the most amazingly beautiful young women I’ve ever laid eyes on. Cast as the ditzy rich girl with self-image problems, some have found her miscast due to her obvious beauty. Those people obviously have never meet a teenage girl. Pretty girls think they’re ugly sometimes too. I’ve always found Tonkin to have a sweet and bubbly presence on screen (how can you not love that gorgeous, warm smile?), and occasionally she gets to show that in a role that at times is a bit of comic relief. She also gets a nice bikini shot. What? What did I say? The blonde hair, however, looks very strange on her. I’m not sure what that was about. She gets one hilarious bit where she attempts to smash a window, I laughed at that. I really think Phoebe ought to be a star, so it’s nice to hear she’s landed TV work in the US on “The Secret Circle”. Other than that, the next best is larrikin Akdeniz, and he’s merely OK. Chris Pang is particularly dull as the aforementioned useless token Asian dude, and it’s no surprise that he’s the least experienced of the actors.

The soundtrack seems to be a catalogue of well-known Aussie acts ranging from decent (Jet, The Cruel Sea) to unbearable (Missy Higgins, and an absolutely unbearable cover of Cold Chisel’s classic “Flame Trees” by breathy-mouthed Sarah Blasko. God I hate breathy-mouthed female folk singers). Although not exactly action packed, Beattie stages the action fairly well, and the cinematography by Ben Nott (who over-indulged in blue filters on “Daybreakers”) is excellent, the best thing in the film. The lighting in particular is really impressive throughout, and the scenery looks lovely without the film turning into a travelogue. The ending, whilst unavoidably inconclusive ends just as the film was starting to really move into “Red Dawn” action territory. That suggests that the sequel will likely be even less original, and more offensive, yet probably more lively than this.

So overall, Beattie shows that we can indeed make a big blockbuster on a reasonably large scale but meagre budget in this country. Great, now go make one worth watching, son. This one just won’t do.

Rating: C