Based on the acclaimed memoir from Robyn Davidson, See Saw Films’ Tracks is a return to the emotional drama for director John Curran (We Don’t Live Here Anymore), whose 2010 thriller Stone just wasn’t up to snuff with the rest of his work. Here’s hoping he didn’t have to take a 2,000 mile journey to figure that out.
The trailer, via EW, is quite possibly the most sunshiny thing I’ve ever seen indoors. The film chronicles the 1,700-mile trip through the Australian wilderness that Davidson took with her dog and camels back in 1977. And Mia Wasikowska is absolutely transformed for the role in a complete 180 from her dark look in this year’s Stoker. Not only is she blond, which looks rather strange, but she’s almost always completely sunburnt and covered in dirt. It’s obviously more of a passion project than a vanity project.
Davidson agreed to write about her adventures for an article in National Geographic, which was later expanded into a book. She met photographer Rick Smolan, played by Girls’ Adam Driver, insisting he be the one to document the journey. As you can imagine, the two get a little hot and heavy along the way, which must have been extremely painful and also awkward with all the camels watching.
Being a Debbie Downer pessimist most of the time, Tracks isn’t the kind of movie that I usually seek out, but there’s something about it that really gets me. Whether it’s the admiration for someone doing things that I’d never in a million years do myself, or if it’s because it’s about a strong woman going against all odds to do what she feels she needs to do, without someone else demanding something from her. It’s a nice respite from HBO’s ideals of what the independent woman is capable of.
I can’t go without pointing out the silliness of the Huffington Post blurb at the end, where they call the film a "one of a kind cinematic venture that comes around every decade or so." How can something be one of a kind if it happens every ten years? But I digress.
The Weinstein Company snatched up the U.S. rights to Tracks, which screened at the Telluride Film Festival earlier this year, but they haven’t yet set a release date for it, though it’ll be out in the U.K. next April. But so help me if they choose to release it on a Wednesday, where people can make incessantly annoying "Hump Day" jokes about it. I'd end up burying my head in the sand.
