‘Blueback’: Toronto Review

Dir: Robert Connolly. Australia. 2022. 102 mins.

A daughter reconnects with her ailing mother — and their shared past — in Blueback, a modest tearjerker which is touching, if a little underpowered. Based on Tim Winton’s novel of the same name, the film features Mia Wasikowska and Radha Mitchell, both of whom give sensitive performances as two generations of women devoted to each other and to protecting the world’s oceans. This inherently melodramatic material has an undeniable emotional sincerity, although the story ends up being so gentle that it barely makes a ripple. 

Connolly (’The Dry’) honours the bond between a mother and a daughter while also advocating for safeguarding the environment.

Premiering at the Toronto Film Festival, this Australian production will benefit from the cachet of its two leads, joined by Eric Bana in a supporting role — and the picture’s heartwarming qualities should prove appealing as well, especially in home markets. While the underwater photography by Rick Rifici is often quite striking, Blueback is such an intimate portrait that it ought to play just as well on the small screen.

Wasikowska stars as Abby, a dedicated marine biologist who is summoned to her childhood home by the news that her beloved mother Dora (Liz Alexander) has suffered a stroke which has left her unable to speak. That modern-day drama is juxtaposed with flashbacks in which teenage Abby (Ilsa Fogg) spends time with dora (Radha Mitchell) as she fights to protect their local bay from greedy developers who want to build new properties along the coast and endanger the indigenous marine  population. 

Director Robert Connolly (The Dry) honours the bond between a mother and a daughter while also advocating for safeguarding of environment. On the latter front, cinematographer Andrew Commis shoots the Australian coast as a gorgeous, unspoiled jewel, making it eminently understandable why both Abby and Dora treasure it so much. Since the death of Dora’s husband died years ago, these two women have had to lean on one another — the beautiful bay is their sanctuary from life’s unhappiness.

Blueback gets its title from the name young Abby bestows on a special western blue groper she encounters while snorkelling, the fish becoming a poignant but also heavy-handed symbol of the fragility of nature — a symbol of all the teeming life under the sea. The flashbacks pointedly illustrate how Dora’s passionate conservationism rubbed off on her impressionable daughter — so much so that Abby eventually decided to go off into the world to pursue marine biology, taking her far away from her mother. 

Connolly and editor Nick Meyers do their best to deftly weave between the two time frames giving each period equal heft. If the flashbacks serve as Abby’s coming-of-age story, then the contemporary scenes find Abby reflecting on the life she left behind — and the repercussions of trying to protect the oceans at the expense of not being as close to her mother as she once was. 

The balance between both strands is helped by Wasikowska and Mitchell’s heartfelt performances. (With special kudos to Fogg as well, considering teenage Abby is arguably Blueback’s central character.) Wasikowska plays the older Abby as a confident expert in her field, although the actress provides just enough shading to hint at a gnawing dissatisfaction lodged somewhere deep within. Presumably, that unspoken melancholy is a quiet longing to reunite with her mother, who Mitchell portrays with a fiery spirit, sometimes encouraging her teen daughter to be braver than she thinks she can be. Without ever making Dora a sainted figure in the flashbacks, Mitchell suggests how she profoundly affected her little girl, leaving an impact that remains to this day.

Bana is agreeably gregarious as a local fisherman sympathetic to the women’s environmental cause, a nice contrast to Erik Thomson as the boo-hiss leader of the developers, an underwritten, broadly-played role. The underwater scenes, using real fish supplemented by special effects, are suitably transporting, explaining why Abby and Dora are such fierce advocates, although Blueback’s eventual use as a plot point proves to be a bit hackneyed. Far better is the film’s subtle notion that nothing lasts, whether it’s untouched natural beauty or those closest to us. A wistful resignation courses through Blueback, acknowledging that what we love may eventually be lost, despite our best efforts.