My Brilliant Career

"Loneliness is a terrible price to pay for independence."

Gillian Armstrong's biggest hit remains My Brilliant Career (1979), a critical and box office smash which turned Judy Davis and Sam Neill into international stars. It seems a typically "tasteful" period melodrama, akin to something from Merchant-Ivory's snooze factory. But Armstrong's adaptation of Miles Franklin's novel proves deliciously complex.

Sybylla Melvin (Judy Davis) resents her life in turn-of-the-century Australia. Family difficulties drive her to live with her cold Grandmother (Aileen Britton), friendly Uncle Julius (Peter Whitford) and Aunt Helen (Wendy Hughes). Sybylla falls for Harry (Sam Neill), a dashing man of means, but rejects his advances. Then circumstances for Sybylla to become governess for a rural neighbor, a role she's neither suited for nor interested in. 

My Brilliant Career beautifully explores the contradictions of feminism. Everyone counsel Sybylla that marriage is the only route to happiness, something she instinctively rejects. She has Helen, ruined by an errant husband, as a counterexample. She's urged to marry for "friendship" or privilege rather than love, which means the doltish Frank (Robert Grubb). Her time as Governess opens another unappealing path: loveless, domineering spinster. Harboring artistic ambitions and self-admitted egotism, she has no desire to be ruled by Victorian patriarchy, caged up like Grandmother's parrots. 

Yet the very traits that make Sybylla admirable compromise her. It's understandable when she rejects Frank's advances and Grandmother's bad advice. But Harry seems a perfect match, sensitive and willing to accommodate Sybylla's desires. Being young we can excuse Sybylla's vague ambitions, but her single-mindedness is less admirable. She makes a nice contrast to Far from the Madding Crowd's Bathsheba and Jane Eyre, ostensibly "independent" women who wind up swooning romantics. Armstrong ends with wistful ambivalence; there's no easy road between independence and marriage.

Indeed, Armstrong and writer Eleanor Witcombe invest Career with subtlety - most obviously through their richly shaded characters. No domineering matriarch, Grandma is stuffy and old-fashioned, but not unsympathetic to Sybylla's plight. Harry is neither rotten bastard nor idealized lover, instead trying to understand his lover. This nuance prevents Career from devolving into feminist diatribe or soap opera.

Armstrong's direction is fairly restrained. Donald McAlpine provides stately photography: pastoral landscapes, hardscrabble farms, cultivated Victorian interiors. Armstrong stages few set pieces (Harry's dance late in the film an exception) with modest period costume and art direction. Yet her almost clinical detachment draws viewers in; Career needs craftsmanship rather than technical flash. Armstrong's refined femininity makes a nice contrast to the hyper-masculine concerns of other Aussie films.

Judy Davis (A Passage to India) ably handles a difficult character, whose admirable qualities make her nigh-insufferable. Behind Davis's endearingly frumpy exterior lies a ferocious will and intelligence: Sybylla pursues her ideal of independence, even if it leaves her broken and unhappy. Davis doesn't play for sympathy, confronting the character's contradictions head on with unsparing detachment.

Sam Neill exudes roguish charm in this early role, yet tempers it with sensitivity. Aileen Britton plays Grandmother to her strengths, a well-meaning reactionary who thinks Sybylla can learn nothing better than to "care for others." Wendy Hughes gets a heartbreaking monologue early in the film, providing an abject rebuke to marriage equaling happiness. Peter Whitford, Robert Grubb and Max Cullen play more archetypical characters. 

Above everything, My Beautiful Career impresses with its intelligence. There's no soap box oratory or bodice ripping, just a thoughtful character study. Can a woman find familial "happiness" without abandoning self-hood? Are independence and love antithetical? Gillian Armstrong provides no easy answers, and plenty of food for thought.