My Brilliant Career

Gillian Armstrong, 1979, Australia (8.9*)

Judy Davis (who has won a trainload of Australian awards and one U.S. Emmy) has a star-making part, and deservedly won a BAA for Best Actress, as 19th century author Sybylla Melvin, a non-conventional woman who would rather pursue "my brilliant career" than simply seek out a husband, even though society keeps telling her that's the proper place for a woman.

She eventually falls in love with another free spirit, a landowner played by Sam Neill, also in a star-making role for him. This is both a terrific romance with lots of passion, and an incisive look at the creative mind; it also avoids sentimentality and compromise. Nice music score featuring Schumann's piano music. One of the best Australian films.

Update: for the perfect complement to this film, see We of the Never Never (1982), the true story of Jennifer Gunn, the first white woman to venture into Australia's Northern Territory, when she married a cattle station manager; based on her memoirs.