{"id":9109,"date":"2012-12-26T13:56:32","date_gmt":"2012-12-26T11:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pinartarhan.com\/blog\/?p=9109"},"modified":"2012-12-26T13:56:34","modified_gmt":"2012-12-26T11:56:34","slug":"the-incredible-journey-of-mary-bryant-review-starring-romola-garai-alex-o-loughlin-jack-davenport-and-sam-neill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pinartarhan.com\/blog\/the-incredible-journey-of-mary-bryant-review-starring-romola-garai-alex-o-loughlin-jack-davenport-and-sam-neill\/","title":{"rendered":"The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant Review- starring Romola Garai, Alex O\u2019 Loughlin, Jack Davenport and Sam Neill"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant image via edbaran.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Convicts, regardless of their crime, are transported via ship to Australia- a-9-month journey they\u2019ll endure under horrible conditions.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s pregnant, she tries improving her conditions by appealing to the seemingly more humane officer, Lieutenant Clarke (Jack Davenport<\/a>). 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\u2019 Loughlin<\/a>), who not only has saved her life, but has shown support.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

But when conditions get worse, Clark doesn\u2019t 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.\u00a0 And even if they manage to escape, they will have to deal with men they don\u2019t trust and survive even harsher conditions to make it to their destination\u2026<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

The Characters \/ Actors<\/b><\/p>\n

(this part might have spoiler(ish) details.)<\/b><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

But the real strength comes from the characters and how the actors have handles their roles:<\/p>\n

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\u2019d 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\u2019t think they have much in common. Norrington earned a lot of sympathy points-despite his understandable contempt for pirates.<\/p>\n

Clarke on the other hand\u2026well, 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 \u201cserve\u201d them, who thought having a woman on a boat was stupid, who didn\u2019t really care about anything other than his own friends &interests…) grew to respect and understand Mary.<\/p>\n

Alex O\u2019Loughlin 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\u2019s because he can pull it off. Just take a look at his parts, on both movie and television: a good vampire (Moonlight<\/a>), a psychopathic killer with a feeding fetish (Feed), a doctor (Three Rivers), a Navy-seal-turned cop (Hawaii Five-O<\/a>), an oyster farmer (Oyster Farmer), a serial killer with OCD\u2026<\/p>\n

His roles require different accents, quirks and interpretations and he pulls it off well. Here, you don\u2019t see Mick St. John (the vamp from Moonlight) or Steve McGarrett (Hawaii Five-O) \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

Sam Neill\u2019s Governor makes his cheating\/emotionally problematic\/prejudiced\/self-righteous character in The Vow <\/a>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\u2019d just let them be when the women were being brutally rated.<\/p>\n

But while playing off O\u2019Loughlin 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.<\/p>\n

Will and Mary make the perfect couple, and even when they seem like they\u2019ll 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\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll love The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant if:<\/b><\/p>\n