Tracks

Tracks is a beautiful, contemplative adventure story about Robyn Davidson (Mia Wasikowska), a young woman who sets out on a nine-month walkabout across the Australian desert. The film is based on Davidson's memoir, which chronicles the story of her two-thousand-mile trek in 1977 across the harsh, sprawling outback. Though at first the movie may remind viewers of other films about characters undertaking long journeys of self-discovery in the desert (from David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia to Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout), this picture differs significantly from those, and, indeed, from the standard quest-movie formula. We don’t learn much about what drives Davidson, and, if she grows and changes over the course of her odyssey, it’s not in ways that are predictable or even discernable. This lack of arc may make it difficult for some viewers to connect with Tracks, but I found the lack of insight into the character refreshing and oddly compelling. The film shows us only a few dreamlike memories of Davidson's childhood. I actually wish we never even saw these flashbacks and instead were simply presented with this quiet, determined woman who holds a firm conviction that the forces driving her are her own business and not for public consumption and speculation.

Davidson undertakes her journey accompanied only by her dog, four camels, and, for a time, an Aboriginal elder. But, much to her chagrin, she's forced to seek sponsorship from National Geographic to fund her trip, and being associated with the magazine saddles her with a modicum of unwelcome fame, as well as frequent visits from the young photographer they assign to document her journey, Rick Smolan (Adam Driver). The audience shares her frustration during the first half of the film because screenwriter Marion Nelson skips over the early days of solitude and jumps to the points in the journey when Davidson replenishes her supplies and interacts with other people. It seems like we won’t get to spend any time with our heroine alone in the desert, and instead, we have to endure the budding romantic subplot between Davidson and Smolan. The female protagonists of comparable films like Out of Africa and Gorillas in the Mist are also loners, but we don't see much of their respective love interests, and when we do, it's only briefly—a welcome break from the solitude. But unlike Robert Redford or Brian Brown in those two classics from the ‘80s, Smolan appears so often that it’s almost as annoying to us as it is to Davidson. Yet the connection between these two characters develops in an unexpected and entirely satisfying way.

Director John Curran (The Painted Veil, We Don't Live Here Anymore) tells this story with an impressionistic quality, focusing on the beauty of the landscape and the human and animal forms superimposed against it. The film's cinematography is surreal and stunning, and the music is ethereal. But what makes the film special is Wasikowska. The young actress from Alice in Wonderland, The Kids Are All Right, Stoker, and this year’s Maps to the Stars is always impressive, but this simple, impenetrable performance is her most captivating yet, a perfect counterpoint to her complex and deeply sympathetic star turn in Cary Fukunaga’s astonishing Jane Eyre. Wasikowska's natural, organic beauty perfectly suits the character and the harsh setting. She never seems like a Hollywood actress playing a part. There’s nothing overtly sexual or voyeuristic about the way Curran’s camera lingers on her slim but sturdy form, even during scenes of nudity, yet we never tire of gazing at her sunburned face and scratched, mosquito-bitten skin. Tracks is the first time I’ve seen Wasikowska act in her native Australian accent, which adds an additional layer of authenticity to the film, but she's at her most powerful in the silent scenes, when we're forced to imagine what's going on behind her squinting eyes.  Voice-over readings from Davidson’s own memoir provide glimpses into the character's psyche, but mostly, we're left to draw our own conclusions. As a result, viewing this film becomes an active experience in which we're deeply engaged in figuring out this enigmatic character.

Driver, best known for his work in Lena Dunham’s Girls, is uncharacteristically understated as Rick Smolan, the photographer whose pictures inspired Davidson’s book and this film. Smolan is a full-fledged character with the movie's most well-developed arc; he's neither a surrogate for the audience nor a boring beefcake providing some commercially viable romance. Driver gives a quiet and nuanced performance, one in which the majority of the character’s transformation occurs without dialogue. Like Davidson, Smolan has a lot going on behind his eyes, but he's much less inscrutable, and we get to watch his perspective expand and deepen.

A final note on this gorgeous and surprisingly moving film: as I watched the credits roll over Smolan’s actual photographs, I was stunned by how closely Wasikowska, Driver, and the rest of the cast resemble their real-life counterparts to the point that it's difficult not to mistake Smolan's photos for production stills. This isn't an uncommon way to end a movie based on real people and events, but I can’t think of a closing credit sequence in which the effect is more striking.