Film review: Dirt Music

In White Point Australia, Georgie (Macdonald) is a former nurse who finds herself trapped in a loveless relationship with Jim Buckridge (David Wenham), a powerful crayfish baron who also expects her to act as mother to his two young sons from a former marriage.

Georgie’s life takes an unexpected turn when she meets handsome Lu Fox (Hedlund), a once successful musician now surviving as a poacher, a seemingly unwise choice given Jim’s monopoly on the local fishing trade. What Georgie hasn’t taken into account is that the Foxes and the Buckridges have a long and chequered history which might well rise to the surface should Jim get wind of his partner’s extra-marital indiscretions with Lu.

With acres of beautiful Australian landscape, turquoise waters and endless sunshine, Dirt Music often feels more like an extended music video than a fully fledged story with a plausible narrative. Furthermore, there doesn’t seem to be anything here in a way of plot or premise that would warrant anyone’s time beyond the usual contrived narratives about taciturn handsome loners waiting to be saved by the right woman — think Nicholas Sparks movies, but with an Aussie accent.

Alas, Dirt Music feels not only deeply contrived, but risibly far-fetched. Granted, there are a couple of decent performances from Macdonald and Wenham, but overall, the whole thing comes across as tediously predictable and somewhat unoriginal.