Originally written for hobby blog 6 July 2018
Don’t read the sixth paragraph if you don’t want spoilers
There feels like there is a lot less to talk when it comes to this movie versus the movie adaptation of Into the Wild. Perhaps it’s because there is more focus on Mia Wasikowska as Robyn Davidson’s isolation from others than in the book. Maybe it’s because, unlike the Into the Wild film adaptation, the film Tracks keeps hold of the ambiguity that the memoir held. We’re never really given much in the way of Davidson’s motivations. In the beginning, middle, nor end of the book does Davidson give any reason more grand for her trip other than because she could. You have to respect that, at least a little bit.
The film suggests that it could be because her father had been an explorer or that she’s working out feelings over her mother’s suicide. The former of which was glazed over and the later not mentioned in the book at all. Though these are less explicit than how Sean Penn handled the ambiguity of the Into the Wild memoir.
Generally speaking, when a book gets adapted into a film, there’s a streamlining process: rough edges are sanded down, and the essentials are shuffled around to fit a three act structure more cohesively. A three act structure that novels don’t have to adhere to as much as films do. In Into the Wild it was in what they added that stood out to me, but those elements went to me enjoying the film. After reading Tracks, I felt what they left out of the film stood out to me, and left me feeling the film was missing something.
In the memoir, the journey to Robyn actually getting the camels and preparing for the journey was half the book while the movie moves quickly through that portion of the story. It can be hard to convey long passages of time in film and prose without outright stating it, but the film makes it feel like the 2 years it took Davidson to get her camels was a breezy few months. Other elements I found missing from the film were less characterization and time spent with the camels and Diggity, and a lot less time spent with the Australian Aboriginal people, whose state of poverty and lack of rights were something Davidson was very passionate about in the book. In the book, we see Davidson learn their language, learn more about their culture, and get to know them personally. The film had a unique opportunity to really talk about these issues without it coming off as sanctimonious as it sometimes comes off as in the book, but ironically enough, it ignores these issues that were such a focus in the book. The Aborigine and their culture being portrayed more as a barrier to Robyn completing her journey rather than the actual major helping hand they were (for example, when Adam Driver’s Rick takes pictures of a secret ceremony and thus Robyn is refused an elder guide through sacred lands). Even though there is a language barrier at the start, Davidson (the writer) imbues Mr. Eddie (her eventual guide) with a lot of personality and character that I don’t feel was given the time to shine in the movie. The scene where Mr. Eddie acts like a “stereotypical Aboriginal” on purpose to scare nosy tourists away is hilarious in the book and given more context and more time into Davidson and Eddie’s relationship. This is not to say any actor was lacking in their performances, least of all which Rolley Mintuma, but I felt Tracks might have done the opposite of Into the Wild. Into the Wild played down the isolation to focus on relationships while Tracks played up Davidson’s isolation, leaving less time to focus on relationships.
Speaking of relationships, perhaps the most important one of the story is between that of Davidson and Rick Smolan. While Davidson is at first resentful of Smolan for intruding on her want for isolation, she eventually accepts him as part of her journey’s package and they do develop a bond of respect. In the film their relationship is a tumultuous affair in more ways than one. Mia Wasikowska’s Davidson is very chilly to Smolan from the get-go and is generally difficult with him until all of sudden she has a moment where she breaks down from the stress, Adam Driver’s Smolan comforts her, and then they end up having sex. There’s no real build up to this sudden switch, and afterwards she virtually goes back to treating him the same. The relationship lacks narrative sense.
Diggity, Davidson’s loyal dog, and the camels Dookie, Bub, Zeleika and baby Goliath are given as much character as the human characters in the novel, but like with the Indigenous peoples, seem to only be tools of Robyn’s journey in the film. Diggity’s death hit a lot less in the film than in book, and if you remember, I mentioned having watched the movie for the first time a long time before the book, so I knew the death was coming. At least as an audience member, I didn’t feel that these animals were a life line for Davidson, which they very much were.
Of course, Mia Wasikowska’s performance is what will make or break the film for people watching, as she is the main subject and much of the film has her as the only human character onscreen. When I watched this movie for the first time, I found Wasikowska’s Davidson bitchy in that she was cold, distant and generally did not play nice with other characters. That behavior was given more context in the book because we were allowed to see what Davidson was thinking. While I admire Wasikowska’s performance and appreciate the film’s wiliness to show a female character filthy with cracked, sun-damaged skin and (at one point) period blood running down her leg, the isolation they place Wasikowska’s Davidson in feels hollow compared to that in the book because we don’t see film Davidson really grow and change, see no introspection. I realize it’s hard to portray a character’s introspection without having them talk aloud to themselves as McCandless does in his film adaptation, but again, it leaves me feeling something is missing when film Davidson ends her journey at the ocean.
Most of this review I have spent what some might think is bashing the film. I want to state here that there is nothing inherently wrong with the film. Somehow the cinematographer makes the monotony of the desert landscape downright artful, and their isn’t a flat-note performance among the bunch. Before I read the book, I would have rated the film Tracks above the film Into the Wild, but after given the context of what could have been, I simply find the film a missed opportunity in some regards. Out of all the adaptions, Tracks had the biggest time gap between book and film, which you would think would give filmmakers a chance to reflect and speak on the events in the book. While the Into the Wild film is an interpretation of the memoir, the Tracks adaption doesn’t as much feel like it has its own identity separate from its source, and I found it more enjoyable after I had read the book. Then again, these critiques I have for the film comes from the fact I had read the book, so I suppose people will need to individually decide for themselves how the film stands on its own.
Some Quick Stats
Book
Author: Robyn Davidson
Published: 1980, by Vintage
Pages: 288
Movie
Directed by: John Curran
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Adam Driver, and Rolley Mintuma
Distributed by: Transmission Films
Released: Originally on August 29th, 2013 in Venice (at the Venice Film Festival), then on October 10th, 2013 in Adelaide, and then on September 19th, 2014 in the US, 33 years after the book was originally published.