Starring: Sam Neill, Greta Scacchi, Kerry Fox
Rating: **
COUNTRY LIFE is a quiet, complex film that eases the internal tensions of its protagonists to the boiling point in the fierce heat of a Hunter Valley summer. As one family welcomes home a long-lost member from their beloved England, their contrived lifestyle as cultured subjects of the Crown becomes an obvious mockery, revealing a multitude of ineffectual lies in the face of the realities of bush life.
Jack Dickens (John Hargreaves) and his niece Sally (Kerry Fox) have spent their lives running a grand but decaying sheep station so that Sally's father might continue to live in London and maintain his career as a writer. That he abandoned Sally as soon as her mother died is a fact none of the family is proud of, but their loyalty to the notion of British gentility is inbred and they simply scrape by, sending monthly cheques "home" without question.
It is not until he returns after 22 years that Alexander (Michael Blakemore) turns out to be much more than the family has bargained for. He is a whining, pretentious, manipulative lecher, and soon it becomes apparent that he is most likely without talent as well. Why his pretty wife Deborah (Greta Scacchi) would endure the gout, the nose drops, and the insults is a mystery to the residents of the small Australian bush town, and soon most of the males within sniffing distance - including the progressive-thinking doctor (Sam Neill) - seem to think they stand a chance with the obviously unhappy Mrs Dickins.
As resentments build and the collective stiff-upper-lip begins to lose it's starch the structure of the entire household falls into turmoil. It is this portion of Country Life that is most interesting - not because of the sexual tension sparked by Deborah but because of the gradual submission on the part of the Dickens' to the notion that it is Australia, and not England, that is home.
Due to a slight dragging of the narrative in the final hour and a few histrionic displays of acting by Blakemore, Country Life falls short of being a great film. Though it is only loosely based on Chekov's Uncle Vanya, it somehow takes on the feel of a stage play, which can be disconcerting when the scene is taking place out in the open bush. Still, it is an outstanding period piece and a very pleasant film choice for a weekend matinee.