Character Review : The Drover

In “Australia”, the Drover (Hugh Jackman) is the male leading character of the movie. He portrayed a dishevelled rough-hewn local, known as the Drover. He is an experienced stockman, who moves livestock, especially cattle, “on the hoof” over long distances in order to move animals during a drought in search of better feed and water or to deliver them to a new owner’s property. The Drover made his acquaintance with Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) when he gets into a fight in a pub on the way to meet her from her plane in Darwin. The prim set of Lady Sarah’s luggage is swept up into the maelstrom of fists between them and even a man's head is punched through one suitcase. To make the things worst, her flimsy underwear, lacy pants and slips flies into the air, against the deep blue sky. The Drover is humorous. In such circumstance, he even greets Lady Sarah: “Welcome to Australia!” and this make her paralysed with anger as well as embarrassment. The drover is independent. This showed when he reluctant to help Lady Ashley in her quest to save both her philandering husband's Australian cattle and the half-caste Aboriginal child, Nullah she finds there. He does not want to get involved in the conflicts between the English white man and the aboriginal child as well as with the unscrupulous employee named Fletcher who is cheating on Lady Sarah husband’s business. He is contented and happy with his current job. However, the Drover is actually compassionate. At last, he could not bear to let Lady Sarah to endure the entire predicament by her own and thus willing to give her a helping hand to drive thousand heads of cattle across Australia’s breathtaking yet brutal landscape to Darwin so that Faraway Downs can be saved. Without denying the fact, the Drover is a man with ego as well. This revealed when the time Lady Sarah told him that Nullah is not going to “walkabout” but being captured. He just believed in himself and without even consider what did Lady Sarah say. He quarrels with her and leaves the home for droving. Besides, he is reluctant to become the partner of Lady Sarah in the charity ball. He is afraid that others will criticise him for trying to be loved with the woman with higher social level than him. However, he is sincere to his feelings at last and finally appeared in the charity ball with a clean-shaven and handsome look. This impressed Lady Sarah and their love story unfolds here.
On the other hand, the Drover is also brave enough by risking her life to rescue Nullal who has been captured by the authorities and sent to live on Mission Island with the rest of the half-Aboriginal children. Through the entire story, the Drover is indeed an enchanting man with those exemplary behaviours and this impress me a lot.