In the 18th century, King George decides that instead of hanging criminals, he can just export them to Australia, where they will work under British soldiers forming a colony.
Convicts, regardless of their crime, are transported via ship to Australia- a-9-month journey they’ll endure under horrible conditions.
One of these criminals is a resilient young woman named Mary (Romola Garai) who is guilty of stealing food to feed herself. Realizing that she’s pregnant, she tries improving her conditions by appealing to the seemingly more humane officer, Lieutenant Clarke (Jack Davenport). Things go well for a while, but when he shows disdain for her pregnancy and takes his anger out on her friend, she turns back to her old conditions. She pays more attention to the advances of the handsome convict Will (Alex O’ Loughlin), who not only has saved her life, but has shown support.
Mary has her baby soon before they arrive and soon, she and Will become an inseparable couple. They use her wits and his fishing abilities to build a home, and live a somewhat better life than the rest.
But when conditions get worse, Clark doesn’t wait to rip them off their livelihood-and Mary begins to fear for the survival of her family, now complete with her daughter and her baby son from Will. She comes up with the best plan she can to escape, but she and Will have to sacrifice a whole lot to make it out alive. And even if they manage to escape, they will have to deal with men they don’t trust and survive even harsher conditions to make it to their destination…
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The Characters / Actors
(this part might have spoiler(ish) details.)
Mary Bryant is the wonderfully complex (and obviously changed for artistic purposes) true story of Mary Bryant (who gets the Bryant surname after marrying Will). This mini-series has a lot to offer, and it offers them better than most big budget period pieces let alone a project made for TV.
The acting, cinematography, direction, costumes and story are all well done. The lines are powerful, sometimes shocking and with just the right amount of comic relief.
But the real strength comes from the characters and how the actors have handles their roles:
I love how Jack Davenport goes back and forth between humane and cruel, gets torn between duty and desire. Yes, I hate his guts throughout and want to punch his character the whole time. So yeah, I’d say he did a good job. And just because he is a well-ranking soldier again (the other one being Norrington in Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl), don’t think they have much in common. Norrington earned a lot of sympathy points-despite his understandable contempt for pirates.
Clarke on the other hand…well, he did way too many things to piss people off. At one point his right hand was warning him that his men could/would turn against him. And we see so much character development from the worthless scumbag (who believed women were there to “serve” them, who thought having a woman on a boat was stupid, who didn’t really care about anything other than his own friends &interests…) grew to respect and understand Mary.
Alex O’Loughlin shows once more than he is a lot more diverse than some people give him credit for. Sure, he lands leading roles in TV series, but that’s because he can pull it off. Just take a look at his parts, on both movie and television: a good vampire (Moonlight), a psychopathic killer with a feeding fetish (Feed), a doctor (Three Rivers), a Navy-seal-turned cop (Hawaii Five-O), an oyster farmer (Oyster Farmer), a serial killer with OCD…
His roles require different accents, quirks and interpretations and he pulls it off well. Here, you don’t see Mick St. John (the vamp from Moonlight) or Steve McGarrett (Hawaii Five-O) – he is a nice, funny, young English fisherman who got busted for smuggling a bit of alcohol- and showed a much stronger and likeable personality than the supposedly religious, reform-believing, well-educated Clarke.
Sam Neill’s Governor makes his cheating/emotionally problematic/prejudiced/self-righteous character in The Vow seem like a cuddly teddy bear. And his solemn character in Alcatraz like a character from Friends. I never liked the character, but the moment I truly hated him was when he said they’d just let them be when the women were being brutally rated.
But while playing off O’Loughlin and Davenport well, Romola Garai has the hardest job. Not only is she in the most scenes, but her character is the one that has to make all the most difficult decisions and undertake the most horrible tasks. Her survival and protective instincts are the strongest. She also uses more brain cells than anyone in the film, but it is never out of arrogance or a desire for social climbing. She tries to help out anyway she can- but if it ever comes to her family, she just chooses her family.
Will and Mary make the perfect couple, and even when they seem like they’ll break down, one of them always reminds the other why they did what they did-and that they still want to be together no matter what. Some of my favorite lines come from those scenes- just when you think they’re not being fair, or letting their despair overcome their feelings for each other, they say something to remind you what makes their characters special and why you admired them in the first place.
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You’ll love The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant if:
- You are a fan of any member(s) of the cast
- You love a well-done period piece
- You appreciate many shades of grey in characters
- You love compelling conflicts in stories
- You love strong characters
Now, some of the Memorable Mary Bryant Quotes Scenes:
(There might be spoilers)
(This one by Will summarizes my thoughts about Mary.)
After having had to leave Sam (Abe Forsythe) behind, Mary is trying hard not to have a breakdown:
Will (matter-of-factly): I could never leave that boy behind. Not more than I could sleep with Ralph Clarke. But we got this far because you could. They all know it but none of them could say it.
Mary (still shaken about it all): We got here because you sailed us here.
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(They are on the boat again, trying to figure out who has been stealing (eating) their share of limited stored food)
Will: We are all thieves.
They all stare at him.
Will: Someone give you this boat?
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Governor is surprised that their colony attempt is later decided to be a success by England-even though things have been getting worse.
Governor: It seems Parliament has declared us a success.
Clarke (amused): By what criteria?
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Mary realizes that the others are going to turn against her and Will-leaving them all behind. She also knows the others have the only musket with a bullet left and that they will use it.
So she grabs it while they are asleep and points it towards them:
Mary: We had a plan. Plan thought of by men who had been sick of being treated like animals. We’ve come all this way and nothing has stopped us. But if we stay here, we’re finished. Now, you’ve made no secret of not wanting me along. One woman in a boat of men. It’s daft idea. But if you leave me, and Will and the children here, you’ll come across a wind you can’t read, a bid you can’t land, a rock you can’t see and you won’t last a week. Now, Will is the one who got us here and Will is the one who’ll get us to Timor. He sailed out from England to Spain and back again in a boat not bigger than ours and in storms far worse than you saw last night.
Cox (Dan Spielman): Going out there in that boat is madness.
Mary: Yes it is madness. A wonderful madness. The kind where strong men grab with both hands – not the kind that eats away weak and frightened men. Now there is a strong wind. We should take it.
Then she fires the gun in the air and walks towards the boat.
Martin (Tony Martin)-to the others: Let’s go.
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Mary is mad that a drunken Will almost spilled out everything to the Dutch.
She knows that he doesn’t like the charade, pretending to be somebody else, the attention all the men are paying to Mary and that she might just be too happy with all the luxury.
Will: You’d be better off here.Marry a Dutchman. God knows you’ve enough of them lying around your feet. No witnesses. No paper. We were blessed by a fool on a beach. Wasn’t legal outside the colony. You’re free.
Mary angrily pins him down and looks at him.
Mary: I’ve never thought myself as being anything other than free. Ever.
Then she kisses him.
