Film Review: Tomorrow, When The War Began

Tomorrow, When The War Began. 104 minutes. Rated M. Written and Directed by Stuart Beattie. Based on the novel by John Marsden.

Writer Stuart Beattie (Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl, Collateral, Australia) makes his directorial debut with this slippery account of John Marsden’s best-seller about the impact of a hostile invasion of Australia on a group of fun-loving teens on the cusp of adulthood. While it’s certainly no masterpiece (great slabs of dreary and repetitious romantically-inclined exposition should have ended up on the cutting-room floor), the talented young cast work hard to engage us and the big action set-pieces are expertly handled and hugely effective.

Ellie (Neighbours’ Caitlin Stasey) and her best friend Corrie (Rachel Hurd-Wood) invite their friends Lee (Christopher Pang), Homer (Deniz Akdeniz), Kevin (Lincoln Lewis), Fiona (Phoebe Tonkin) and Robyn (Ashleigh Cummings) on a weekend camping trip to ‘Hell’ – a beautiful, isolated grotto in the nearby mountains. One night, asleep under the stars, the group are awoken by the ominous roar of fighter planes overhead. Unable to even contemplate that these are enemy aircraft beginning an invasion of their country, the group continue to relax and enjoy their time away together. When they return home, they find that everything about their world has changed for the worst – and together they must find the strength and resolve to do their bit to fight for the freedom they have, until now, taken for granted.

Beattie’s inconsistent script provides little real insight into the minds of Marsden’s resourceful warriors and focuses too heavily (and far too literally) on what becomes tedious romantic angst. Ms Cummings gives the best performance as a young girl having to resolve the conflict between her strongly-held religious beliefs and the ultimate price she must pay to protect the safety and wellbeing of her friends, while Ms Tonkin, too, is great as the innocent city girl who finds herself more than capable of rising to meet the enemy when faced with no other choice.

Beattie’s direction, Ben Nott’s (Daybreakers) cinematography, Marcus D’Arcy’s (Sea Patrol, Babe, Lorenzo's Oil) editing and Robert Webb’s (Rogue, The Caterpillar Wish) production design are at their best in the war and resistance sequences (particularly an amazing night-time sequence when the house the teenagers are hiding in is visited by an enemy helicopter). The scenes of a previously vibrant Australian country town and its population decimated by the horrors of occupation are extremely well done and confronting – and it is these sequences that mark Tomorrow … as an occasionally arresting experience. Overall, it’s a well-intentioned but frustratingly patchy affair, even if the pay-off is certainly worth the wait.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.