Shaun de Waal Movie of the week
Jack is a truck driver, accustomed to traversing large swathes of the dusty Australian outback. He’s also the author of a romantic novel, A Bird in the Hand, but he doesn’t want anyone to know that, because “blokes aren’t meant to write them”. He has made use of the name of a friend of his, one Ruby Vale, as a pseudonym. But now the book is a huge success and he has to persuade the real Ruby, a tomboyish pilot, to impersonate the writer who has come to be known as “the female Wilbur Smith of the love jungle”.
That’s the basic plot of the charming Australian movie Paperback Hero, written and directed by Anthony Bowman and based on his own novel. It’s a simple love story, a romantic comedy with few pretensions, which plays itself out with the inevitability of the genre, skilfully using the conventions of the very romances Jack is now writing.
Hugh Jackman plays Jack, whose considerable brawn conceals the softly palpitating heart of a Barbara Cartland, perhaps one a little more up-to-date than that pink-swathed dame. His ready grin and the sentimental warmth he displays toward his rather mangy old dog hint from the start that he’s no lunkhead, and that he has sensibilities beyond those of your average truck driver.
Claudia Karvan plays Ruby, who delights in flipping her ancient-looking plane about the skies of the outback. Clearly, she’s no shrinking violet (or whatever similar bloom the Australian countryside brings forth), and her great fondness for such escapades signals her independence of spirit. She’s engaged to be married to good-hearted but not exactly hunky vet Hamish (Andrew S Gilbert), but she’s a little cagey about the precise date of the upcoming wedding, which should give one a clue as to her true, though as yet barely glimpsed, feelings.
The movie’s supporting roles are filled by a range of bucolic oddballs, in a way familiar from many an Australian movie with a fondness for those forlorn hamlets. Such characters are well-drawn, albeit with broad strokes – there is a moment involving a wig that tells us more about one character than any amount of wordy analysis. The contrast between the life of the boondocks, however, and the glitzy city goings-on, is implied rather than dwelt upon, though the figure of Angie Milliken, the slick-chick representative of Jack/Ruby’s publishers, is given a bit of a rough ride at the start.
There are absurdities in the movie, including the fact that Jack doesn’t seem to have a publisher’s proof or an advance copy of his novel, despite the fact that it has already been glowingly reviewed, so he has to rely on his hand-scribbled manuscript. Also, his mates’ feared reaction to his romance-writing doesn’t seem like much of a real threat, though a rambunctious stag party does give a vague idea of their likely responses.
These, however, are small plot points that do not mar the beguiling whole that is Paperback Hero. I suspect, though, that to enjoy it wholly you’ll have to be in the right mood for such a sweetly unassuming confection.