In
1939, Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) travels from England to
northern Australia to force her philandering husband to sell his
faltering Australian cattle station, Faraway Downs. Her husband is
murdered shortly before she arrives, with suspicions that he was killed
by an Aboriginal elder, "King George" (David Gulpilil). Cattle station
manager Neil Fletcher (David Wenham) is trying to gain control of
Faraway Downs, so that Lesley 'King' Carney (Bryan Brown) can have a
complete cattle monopoly in the Northern Territory, which will give him
negotiating leverage with an Australian army officer, Captain Dutton
(Ben Mendelsohn).
The
childless Lady Sarah is captivated by a young half-caste boy, Nullah,
who was born to an Aboriginal mother and an unknown white father. When
Lady Sarah sees Fletcher mistreating the Aborigines, she fires him and
decides to try and run the station herself. She persuades her husband's
drover (Hugh Jackman) — called simply "Drover" — to
take the cattle to Darwin for sale. Drover, a white man, is friendly
with the Aborigines, and therefore shunned by many of the other whites
in the territory. It is revealed that he had married an Aboriginal
woman, but she had died after being refused medical treatment in a
local hospital because of her race.
Drover leads a team of six other riders, including Lady Sarah, Drover's
Aboriginal brother-in-law
Magarri
(David Ngoombujarra), Nullah, and the station's accountant Kipling
Flynn (Jack Thompson), to
drive the 1,500 cattle to Darwin. They encounter various obstacles
along the way, including the death of Flynn. However, Lady Sarah and
Drover develop a romance, and she gains a new appreciation for the
Australian territory. After they successfully deliver the cattle, Lady
Sarah, Nullah, and Drover live together happily for two years. However,
Fletcher kills Carney and marries Carney's daughter Cath Carney, takes
over his empire, and then continues to menace Lady Sarah. It is
determined that Fletcher was the actual murderer of Lady Sarah's
husband, and that Fletcher is also almost certainly the father of
Nullah.
Nullah is drawn to perform a
walkabout with his grandfather, the aboriginal elder "King George", but
is instead captured by the authorities and sent to live with other
half-caste children on Mission Island. Lady Sarah vows to rescue him,
but first works as a radio operator during the escalating war. When the
Japanese attack the island and Darwin in 1942, Lady Sarah fears that
Nullah was killed, and Drover and Nullah hear (mistakenly) that Sarah
was killed. The Drover rescues the children from the island, and when
they sail back into port at Darwin, Nullah plays his harmonica with the
tune of "Over the Rainbow" from the film The Wizard of Oz. Lady Sarah
hears the music, and the three are reunited. Fletcher attempts to shoot
Nullah but is speared by King George and falls dead. On the way back to
Faraway Downs, King George calls for Nullah, his grandson, who returns
to the outback with his grandfather.
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