Synopsis
A young woman who is determined to maintain her independence finds herself at odds with her family who wants her to tame her wild side and get married.
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Cast
- Judy DavisSybylla Melvyn
- Sam NeillHarry Beecham
- Wendy HughesAunt Helen
- Robert GrubbFrank Hawdon
- Max CullenMr. McSwatt
- Aileen BrittonGrandma Bossier
- Peter WhitfordUncle Julius
- Patricia KennedyAunt Gussie
- Alan HopgoodFather
- Julia BlakeMother
Recommendations
- 100
The Guardian
The film itself is a kind of free spirit, and one that has made an indelible print on Australian cinema. - 100
TV Guide Magazine
Davis gives a lively and humanistic performance, and the direction by Gillian Armstrong (MRS. SOFFEL, HIGH TIDE), in her feature debut, matches her heroine's character: strong, with a good sense of wanting to get something done and then doing it. The mise-en-scene is well composed, and the story is well told in this wonderful Australian work. - 100
Newsweek
Armstrong's first feature is a terrific job, a universally appealing story told with an integrity, humanity, warmth and humor you can taste. It is beautifully shot and performed with a style and sensitivity worthy of England's best actors. Russet-haired, bold-eyed, defiantly freckled Davis is like a summer storm, and Sam Neill has the rueful charm of a young James Mason. [22 Oct 1979, p.101] - 90
The New York Times
My Brilliant Career doesn't need to trumpet either its or its heroine's originality this loudly. The facts speak for themselves — and so does the radiance with which Miss Armstrong and Miss Davis invest so many memorable moments. - 90
The A.V. Club
Through a miracle of timing, Davis landed the lead role in Gillian Armstrong's assured debut feature My Brilliant Career fresh out of performance school, and it's impossible to imagine anyone else playing the part. - 80
Variety
This Australian film is a charming look [from the book by Miles Franklin] at 19th-century rural days in general and the stirrings of self-realization and feminine liberation in the persona of a headstrong young girl who wants to go her own way. - 75
Slant Magazine
If the narrative is slightly schematic in the way it sets up a binary between Harry and freedom, it’s never didactic. That’s thanks to Armstrong’s clear-eyed direction, which never feels the need to underline its points, relying on selections from Schumann’s “Scenes from Childhood” to lend the film a mood of droll wistfulness. - 70
Time
This is a modest, clear sighted film, and it profits considerably from a lack of the bravura landscape photography that most directors would have used to puff up a movie set in Australia.
