The Travellers was filmed across Perth, Fremantle and York.
Bryan Brown, Luke Bracey and Susie Porter give great performances in this story about a theatre-maker returning home to Australia from Europe to farewell his dying mother
Bruce Beresford’s The Travellers blends opera and the outback in a heartfelt story about homecoming
Famed Australian director Bruce Beresford loves opera. If you weren’t aware of this before watching his new film, The Travellers, you most likely will be by the time the credits roll.
It would be reductive to suggest this movie is one big ad for opera’s ability to unite rural Australia. Yet, the way in which Beresford folds this art form into The Travellers across 97 minutes is at once beguiling, heartfelt and at times quite on the nose.
Despite this occasional clunkiness, Beresford has written and directed a film sure to please the broad swathe of Australian cinemagoers who know and care for popular Australian actor Bryan Brown’s big screen career.
The Travellers feels very much of a piece with Australian writer/director Bill Bennett’s successful 2024 theatrical release The Way, My Way, a semi-autobiographical film that chronicles Bennett’s efforts to complete the Camino de Santiago trail in Spain.
Tonally, both films share what might be described as a “heightened naturalism”. In The Travellers, this works well in scenes where Brown plays the well-recognised archetype of an older, grumpy, blokey dad.
The Travellers: honest as review
Director: Bruce Beresford
Writer: Bruce Beresford
Cast: Luke Bracey, Bryan Brown, Susie Porter, Nicholas Hammond
Bruce Beresford’s The Travellers should speak to me on a different level. I also left my city (and home country) to pursue a career opportunity in another place and returning home means dealing with unresolved family issues and confronting the fact that while I may have changed, it feels like back home didn’t. So believe me when I say that this film tries so hard to cling to its drama, that it failed to hit a true emotion.
The returning man is Stephen (Luke Bracey), now a star opera set designer in Europe, who finds his way back to his hometown in rural Western Australia to be with his sickly mother. Stephen’s father, Fred (Bryan Brown) is a stubborn old git, salt of the Earth kind of all-Australian bloke, who is probably losing some of his sense of reality, but never connected with his creative son, anyway. Then there’s the sister, Nikki (Susie Porter), who lives several hours away with her family but works as a bridge between Fred and Stephen. How detached is Stephen from the rest of the world? He goes to the little country town pub (I re-iterate, he grew up in this place) wearing a neck scarf. A man of the people.
Fred in the meantime slowly loses reason in a house that becomes progressively messier. Lightbulbs aren’t replaced, newspapers aren’t thrown out (“there are some articles I want to keep” he says), and dinners are often just a can of beans. Even my father-in-law throws a sausage or two on the barbeque, no need to this level of dejection.
The problem is exactly how in-your-face all of it is. Beresford, who also penned the script, is a veteran filmmaker who made his career during the era of serious Hollywood prestige that doesn’t exist anymore (Driving Miss Daisy, Crimes of the Heart). But those films had the scrutiny of an entire production machine behind them, maybe to tug the heartstrings of the biggest sceptic. Unshackled, Beresford gives nothing else but trivial mundanities and simplistic interpretations of the world.
It comes across that Beresford has never talked to a young person or even visited a single rural Australian town. Because where did he find the only town in Western Australia with no First Nations peoples (not true, there is one, in the background, he’s not given a single line lest production has to pay him residuals). There’s an odd motif about “it was better in the old days”, heightened by Fred’s disconnect with his grandchildren mainly because they’re always on their iPads (you know, kids these days…), and a worthless scene where Fred muses about Errol Flynn as “they don’t make’em like they used to” movie star. I do like that Stephen’s counterpoint is Cate Blanchet and Mark Rylance.
Beyond the naivete of its ways, The Travellers can be rather charming. Brown nails his performance, but it feels like the film left something on the floor to stand up to Fred’s stubbornness against progress. Stephen is probably the conduit to Beresford (the filmmaker admitted the film was based in his own experience of going back home to his mother after the pandemic), but he’s underwritten to a fault. He’s so annoyingly arrogant I struggle to think of someone who would behave like he does, but he also seems to charm every single woman he comes across, for no less than three women fall for him, and two go out of their way to be with him at least once. It’s wishful thinking, the whole thing. Completely out of character unless the director wants to imagine a world where everyone wants to sleep with him at the flick of a clever turn phrase.
There is here a solid three star film somewhere, if Beresford had listened to the feedback. Because this is what it looks like. That he delivered this personal script but no one had the guts to send him notes to develop the theme and his characters a little better. As a result, it’s all very anaemic. I’m all up for supporting Australian cinema, and by all means go see this film if it sounds like you’ll appreciate it more than me, but I wonder if Australian filmmakers are too comfortable in their own space to listen to scrutiny. Why no one in this production went back to Beresford with some thoughts on his plot lines, with concerns on how the themes were developed. The Travellers is a middle-of-the-road drama with no relevant truth to tell. More “old man shouts at the cloud” than human analysis of our failure to reconnect with our roots if we go too far, too astray. Because there’s a good idea there, one that could even reveal something larger about the modern Australian experience.
Verdict: 2 out of 5
For anyone looking for a simple, no fuss, drama. It’s the lowest denominator of the genre, but if you’re looking for something deeper, look elsewhere.
Ticket giveaway – Twinless
After meeting in a twin bereavement support group, Roman (Dylan O’Brien) and Dennis (James Sweeney) develop an unlikely bromance as they both search for solace and an identity without their better halves. They soon become inseparable, but old wounds reopen that will have permanent consequences for their friendship. Lauren Graham and Aisling Franciosi also star in this stirring, whip-smart, wholly original dark-comedy from breakout multi hyphenate director James Sweeney. In cinemas 23 October. Watch the trailer here.
For a chance to win a double pass, email your postal address to journal@lawsociety.com.au with the subject line TWINLESS by Tuesday 14 October.
Avon River
Penny Farthing Sweets on Avon Terrace
Swinging Bridge suspended across the Avon River
York Motor Museum
With rolling verdant and golden vistas reminiscent of the UK, it’s easy to understand how Perth’s first inland town earned its name of York.
With Mt Brown and Mt Bakewell watching over the valley, settlers arrived from the UK and made the 97km journey from Perth to the Avon Valley in 1831. It soon became apparent that the rich soil would yield favourable results and with this prediction, land cultivation and the thriving town of York soon followed.