Emotional "Romulus" somber but never grim

By Megan Lehmann

SYDNEY (Hollywood Reporter) - No one could accuse Aussie actor Richard Roxburgh of being a chicken.

For his directing debut, he has tackled a hard-sell downer of a tale about a migrant family living a hardscrabble existence in the Australian bush near the end of World War II.

Incredibly, much like the great Shakespearean tragedies, "Romulus, My Father" manages to transcend a wretched pileup of calamities -- suicide, infidelity, madness -- and emerge as a work of melancholic beauty.

Credit unfaltering performances by Eric Bana, Franka Potente and limpid-eyed newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee, as well as Roxburgh's decision to echo the restraint of the stripped-back memoir upon which the drama is based.

"Romulus" is a beacon of sensitive filmmaking in what lately has been a fairly bleak local landscape. Its raw emotional power also could translate effortlessly to an international art house audience.

The memoir of Australian moral philosopher Raimond Gaita, adapted for the screen by poet Nick Drake, recounts a childhood uneasily balanced between the hard-working integrity of his father and the erratic behavior of his chronically promiscuous mother.

Smit-McPhee plays Rai as an 8-year-old, who suffers through more than a little boy should.

His beautiful mother, Christina (Potente), treats their bare-bones home in country Victoria like a hotel, dropping in unannounced whenever one of her big-city affairs peters out.

Romulus (Bana) is a poor blacksmith from Eastern Europe struggling to scrape together a living in an often-hostile environment. His great love for his wife lends him a capacity for forgiveness that is saint-like.

He's not a saint, of course, but he's a good man and -- barring the odd violent explosion of pent-up emotion -- provides a strong role model for his son.

The screenplay is frugal with dialogue, and positively stingy with exposition.

Roxburgh, who has had success as a stage director, makes terrific use of stillness and is a master at just letting his characters be.

The expressive silences between father and son are companionable, then strained as Christina's casual infidelities and reckless neglect of her family take their toll.

Letters from his absent wife turn up at the farm sporadically, each one a fresh assault on Romulus' heart.

Bana is a soulful actor and his stricken looks cut deep as Romulus learns that Christina has hooked up with his good friend Mitru (Russell Dykstra), then that she's moving in with him, and later that she's having his baby.