Both Leah Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife (2021) and Fred Schepisi’s Roxanne (1987) are drawn from theatrical progenitors: the former a play penned by director-writer-star Purcell herself, the latter Edmond Rostand’s French play Cyrano de Bergerac. Moreover, both features are somewhat shrewd updates of late 1800s source material: Rostand’s play was first performed in 1897, whilst Purcell’s 21st century play was adapted from Henry Lawson’s 1892 short story of the same name.
Roxanne is a contemporary retelling and American transplant of Rostand’s play. The larger-than-life soldier poet Cyrano of the play-text is now silver-haired, silver-tongues fireman C.D., played by writer-star Steve Martin: more grounded than Rostand’s heroic character, but still afflicted with a gigantic nose. As per the beats of the play, C.D. falls in love with the beautiful Roxanne (Darryl Hannah) but is enlisted to help marble-mouthed Chris (Rick Rossovich) to woo her.
The role of Cyrano scored Jose Ferrer an Oscar in 1950,
Gerard Depardieu an Oscar nomination in 1990, and SHOULD have scored Peter
Dinklage a nomination in 2021 (for Joe Wright’s musical adaptation) and Martin
nominations for Actor and Screenplay for Roxanne. This film is charming and
witty and showcases some of its star’s best work, in an era that was largely
great work, preceded by Three Amigos and Little Shop of Horrors, followed by
Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Parenthood. Though
I’d be hard pressed not to call Martin the overriding auteur and creative force
of the picture, there are several noteworthy tools in Australian director
Schepisi’s arsenal that I think cannot be discounted. Firstly, his deftness
with adapting dialogue-driven theatrical material, as evidenced by his
adaptations of Plenty and Six Degrees of Separation. Secondly, his deft
handling of other dominant star voices on later comedies: John Cleese on Fierce
Creatures and the Douglases on It Runs in the Family. Thirdly, the filmmaker’s
sharp sense of tone and pacing, which keep Roxanne humming along beautifully.
Like Martin, Purcell is a strong self-generator of material.
And much as I’m predisposed to liking Roxanne based on my affection for Martin
and other adaptations of his source, as a long-time admirer of both Purcell and
of Henry Lawson’s short story—indisputably one of the best works of short
Australian fiction—I was predisposed to liking The Drover’s Wife. However, as it stands, I admired Purcell’s film more than I liked it. A loose
adaptation or free variation on the source story, this revisionist take on
Lawson’s colonial era work maintains the original setting, but updates the source
ideologically and expands upon its plot significantly. Where Lawson’s story focuses
squarely on the implicitly white wife of a drover contending with a snake to
protect her family, here the lead, essayed onscreen by Purcell, is Indigenous
and rearing mixed race children, and must contend with not only natural but
human foes, along with the misogyny and racism they wield. Purcell plays the title role with conviction, and her direction is muscular and robust, but
ultimately The Drover’s Wife is, for me at least, dramatically unsatisfying:
its narrative pivots and ideological ends—all sympathetic—ultimately prove somewhat
obvious and predictable.