My Brilliant Career

The action and sentiments are familiar to the point of cliche, and there isn't much life in Gillian Armstrong's academic direction—she keeps pushing ideas over events, and meanings over emotions. But Judy Davis, as a teenage girl who dreams of transcending her rural background to become a cultivated, independent woman, grants the film much charm and passion. Read full review

This conflict between love and ambition is finely depicted as far as it goes, and the period setting, in a time when birth control problems made the choice of marriage a commitment to unlimited family life, could have reinforced the poignancy of the choice. But because the character has been thinly written, her decision seems selfishly arbitrary. [14 March 1980, p.17]

This Australia film - the pictorial re-creation of a late-Victorian novel - shows considerable charm and craft, though it's essentially taxidermy.

The period atmosphere is evoked with careful delicacy, but the characters rarely become more than stereotypes with performances (Judy Davis excepted) to match. Read full review