Injecting a dose of humour into a slice of deadly serious subject matter is a precarious business. The Western mistreatment of the indigenous Australians whose careful, balanced, harmonious way of living produced the agricultural and geographical utopia that the settlers were so proud to have stumbled upon by chance has always been carefully depicted with the utmost sincerity and solemnity. As respectable as this may be, it's starting to give Australia a painfully morose cinematic identity, so we should be grateful that exuberant directors Rachel Perkins and Wayne Blair have put more of a lively, entertaining spin on the subject, Perkins with the memorable but uneven musical Bran Nue Dae (2009) and now Blair with the much more grounded character dramedy The Sapphires. While toe-tapping tunes have been a major element of both, with the exquisite pop diva Jessica Mauboy leading the melodic charge in each of them, Perkins' effort dove wholeheartedly into the cheesy, episodic musical genre and drenched its plot in campiness, whereas Wayne's feature debut tames the songs and puts them at the service of a much more solid story.
The film depicts the formation of a real-life female Aboriginal singing group that are hired in Vietnam to entertain the American troops embroiled in the savage, pointless war against the natives. However, the nature of the war itself is mostly assumed knowledge for the viewer, and the terror of the conflict is conveying sparingly but powerfully in handful of intense high-energy danger sequences. The Vietcong are just one of the many features of the lives of these four feisty black belters and their eccentric Irish manager. The eldest, Gale (the always compelling Deborah Mailman) is head of the pack, and very much a motherly figure whose wilder, softer youthful side has been repressed by her responsibilities as her and her two sisters, sassy Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell making a confident cinema debut) and the younger but still feisty Julie (Jessica). The fourth girl, their half-caste cousin Kay (other newcomer Shari Sebbens) is plucked from her self-deceiving upper- class Melbournian lifestyle and eventually convinced to stand beside her true family.
Thrown into this colourful female mix, their manager, named Dave, is as familiarly ambitious and self-assured, with troublesome collection of hidden defects and secrets, is as commonplace to the A Star is Born genre as Gale's outwardly robust but internally delicate is a staple of family dramas, but the Irish comic and captivating dramatic actress truly perfect these potential clichés, as do the writers, Tony Briggs and Keith Thompson. Tapsill and Sebbens are impressively controlled during their first frolics on the silver screen, and even the notoriously stilted Jessica excels in moments of snarky humour, and manages to stay out of the way during more demanding scenes with pathos. Yet the oft-mentioned Aussie singer clearly wasn't cast for her acting abilities. She deserves great recognition for her scintillating vocals and commitment to the project. Few 20-year-olds can make so many smooth key-changes and belt out a groovy melody like her, and the soundtrack offers her many opportunities to display her magical talent in everything poignant, soulful blues harmonies to catchy pop numbers. She nearly achieves the same perfection in her department as Mailman and O'Dowd do in theirs – it's only a few awkwardly weak screams that let her down. While much of the farm of this wiry Aboriginal family would have been hampered by having all four of them played by singers, it's good to have at least the lead singer doing her own vocals (the rest is done mostly by Juanita Tippens, Jade McRae, and a handful of contestants from The Voice Australia), although I've never disapproved of lipsynching in movies any more than I do of stuntmen.
Australia needs a good crowd-pleaser that isn't too nutty, like Bran Nue Dae, and doesn't divide audiences as much as Baz Lhurmann's films do. The Sapphires doesn't really have anything new to say about Indigenous issues, much less the Vietnam war, it is earnest, easy-going entertainment that's quite well-executed, especially in the beautiful relationship between the madcap Dave and the indomitable Gale. It's a must-see as such, but it's a fine choice if you happen to be going to the movies anytime soon.
The film depicts the formation of a real-life female Aboriginal singing group that are hired in Vietnam to entertain the American troops embroiled in the savage, pointless war against the natives. However, the nature of the war itself is mostly assumed knowledge for the viewer, and the terror of the conflict is conveying sparingly but powerfully in handful of intense high-energy danger sequences. The Vietcong are just one of the many features of the lives of these four feisty black belters and their eccentric Irish manager. The eldest, Gale (the always compelling Deborah Mailman) is head of the pack, and very much a motherly figure whose wilder, softer youthful side has been repressed by her responsibilities as her and her two sisters, sassy Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell making a confident cinema debut) and the younger but still feisty Julie (Jessica). The fourth girl, their half-caste cousin Kay (other newcomer Shari Sebbens) is plucked from her self-deceiving upper- class Melbournian lifestyle and eventually convinced to stand beside her true family.
Thrown into this colourful female mix, their manager, named Dave, is as familiarly ambitious and self-assured, with troublesome collection of hidden defects and secrets, is as commonplace to the A Star is Born genre as Gale's outwardly robust but internally delicate is a staple of family dramas, but the Irish comic and captivating dramatic actress truly perfect these potential clichés, as do the writers, Tony Briggs and Keith Thompson. Tapsill and Sebbens are impressively controlled during their first frolics on the silver screen, and even the notoriously stilted Jessica excels in moments of snarky humour, and manages to stay out of the way during more demanding scenes with pathos. Yet the oft-mentioned Aussie singer clearly wasn't cast for her acting abilities. She deserves great recognition for her scintillating vocals and commitment to the project. Few 20-year-olds can make so many smooth key-changes and belt out a groovy melody like her, and the soundtrack offers her many opportunities to display her magical talent in everything poignant, soulful blues harmonies to catchy pop numbers. She nearly achieves the same perfection in her department as Mailman and O'Dowd do in theirs – it's only a few awkwardly weak screams that let her down. While much of the farm of this wiry Aboriginal family would have been hampered by having all four of them played by singers, it's good to have at least the lead singer doing her own vocals (the rest is done mostly by Juanita Tippens, Jade McRae, and a handful of contestants from The Voice Australia), although I've never disapproved of lipsynching in movies any more than I do of stuntmen.
Australia needs a good crowd-pleaser that isn't too nutty, like Bran Nue Dae, and doesn't divide audiences as much as Baz Lhurmann's films do. The Sapphires doesn't really have anything new to say about Indigenous issues, much less the Vietnam war, it is earnest, easy-going entertainment that's quite well-executed, especially in the beautiful relationship between the madcap Dave and the indomitable Gale. It's a must-see as such, but it's a fine choice if you happen to be going to the movies anytime soon.