Rabbit-Proof Fence (December 7/02)

Phillip Noyce's Rabbit-Proof Fence is based on the shocking true-life story of how, starting in the '30s, young Australian children who were half Aboriginal and half white were taken from the families and sent to camps to be trained as domestic staff. But as compelling as the subject matter is, the film comes off as weak and even dull - due mostly to some poor acting and questionable directorial choices.

Everlyn Sampi stars as Molly Craig, one of three sisters dragged from her home kicking and screaming and sent to a crowded training camp. Molly refuses to accept her fate, and plots an escape her two sisters and herself. Meanwhile, the man heading the program, Mr. Neville (Kenneth Branagh), realizes that public knowledge of the Craig escape would spell disaster for his enterprise, and assigns two men to track down the girls - one of whom is an Aboriginal himself.

Rabbit-Proof Fence contains what is undeniably a fascinating story, but the film never manages to express that extreme feeling of risk that the real-life girls must have felt. The whole thing just comes off as curiously flat, despite some stunning locales and a fine performance from Branagh. The heart of the problem lies with the casting of the three girls, who (though they look the part) always exude a certain amount of amateurishness. They're just never entirely convincing in conveying any emotions other than fear (and even then, there's an over rehearsed quality to their acting). And since virtually the entire film follows their journey through the perilous Australian outback, it's extremely important that these girls create characters worth caring about - which they don't.

But they're not as bad as the women playing the girls' mother and grandmother, who seemingly have never stepped before a camera in their lives. The sequence in which the trio is taken by the government should have been harrowing (Noyce makes that abundantly clear, judging by the over-the-top music and in-your-face camerawork). Instead, it's ruined by the laughably bad performances in which the actresses seem to think yelling a lot will translate into high drama. And as for Branagh, he does a good job of ensuring that Mr. Neville never turns into a one-dimensional villain. This is a guy who's so clueless that, at one point, he says, "in spite of himself, the native must be helped" - and we really get the impression that he believes that. It's a good performance, and likely would've been far more effective in a film devoted to that character.

It's a shame, really, that Rabbit-Proof Fence winds up as mediocre as it does because this is an important topic that deserved a better presentation.