Sybylla (Judy Davis), a headstrong, free-spirited girl growing up in late 19th century Australia, dreams of becoming a famous writer. When the man she loves proposes, Sybylla must choose between romance an the brilliant career she craves.
The period atmosphere is evoked with careful delicacy, but the characters rarely become more than stereotypes with performances (Judy Davis excepted) to match.
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
July 25, 2007
A remarkably assured -- and unfailingly attractive looking -- look at the life of a young woman in 1897 Australia.
This Australian film is a charming look at 19th-century rural days in general and the stirrings of self-realization and feminine liberation in the persona of a headstrong young girl who wants to go her own way.
A seminal part of Australian cinema, made at the end of the 70s, when local filmmaking was no longer just a wild dream; in some ways we can see a symbolic metaphor for Australia itself in the story of strong willed Sybylla aspiring to be heard
My Brilliant Career marks the beginning of exactly that for both the film's daring, assured, high-spirited Australian director, Gillian Armstrong, and its rambunctious young star.
Chicago Reader
January 01, 2000
The action and sentiments are familiar to the point of cliche, and there isn't much life in Gillian Armstrong's academic direction.
Davis is charmingly cynical in the film, and Neill's a winner, but ultimately this period piece gets so caught up in its own cleverness and wannabe shock that it comes off as trite.
This is a modest, clear sighted film, and it profits considerably from a lack of the bravura landscape photography that most directors would have used to puff up a movie set in Australia.
