
Jack (Alex O’Loughlin) discusses love with Skippy (Jack Thompson), a Vietnam veteran who lives as a hermit on one of the many remote creeks in the national park. Skippy shows a glimpse of his dark side as they go fishing. Brownie and Trish (David Field and Kerry Armstrong) discuss plans after getting back together. Brownie offers Jack his own oyster leases, but only if he will take Brownie’s father Mumbles (Jim Norton) with him. Summary by Paul Byrnes.
One of the strengths of Anna Reeves’s script is the unpredictability of her characters, and their sometimes cryptic dialogue. Jack Thompson’s Vietnam veteran is a good example; he has very little screen time, but manages to invest Skip with a strong sense of barely contained violence, as well as unexpected wisdom. The frankness of Brownie’s proposal to give Jack a sub-lease is also disarming and very funny – he can only have the lease if he takes the troublesome father with him.
Jack Flange (Alex O’Loughlin) takes a job as an oyster farmer on the Hawkesbury River, north of Sydney. To help his sister (Claudia Harrison), who’s recuperating after a car accident, he robs an armoured van at the Sydney Fish Markets and immediately mails the money to himself. The money never arrives and he begins to suspect the close-knit community on the river, even Pearl, the girl he’s falling in love with (Diana Glenn). Meanwhile his boss, Brownie (David Field), believes his oysters are going bad because his wife (Kerry Armstrong) has left him. Brownie’s Irish father (Jim Norton) plots a strategy to solve all their troubles.
Oyster Farmer is largely a film about a location, rather than a plot. Writer–director Anna Reeves was so struck by the beauty and drama of the Hawkesbury River, a place of remote and eccentric charm so close to the city, that she spent four years immersing herself in its culture, especially the lives of the oyster farmers. The film has an almost ethnographic feel, combining the details of the working lives of the characters with a sly sense of comedy.
The lives of people in small coastal communities had been richly dramatised in the 1990s in Seachange, a television show that looked at the phenomenon of city people looking for a new lifestyle. Oyster Farmer has a similar sense of humour, but it’s about the people who were in a place before the outsiders began to arrive. Brownie is the fourth generation of his family to farm oysters on the river, but the film raises questions about whether his kind are dying out. At the same time, the film is about the bruising dynamics of families, with Brownie’s estrangement from his wife Trish (Kerry Armstrong) given almost as much screen time as the burgeoning romance of Jack and Pearl. The pacing of the film is uncertain at times, but the characters are vivid, and the tone light. Alun Bollinger, a veteran New Zealand cinematographer, gives the Hawkesbury River a mysterious grandeur that matches Anna Reeves’s quietly passionate script. Reeves was born in New Zealand but trained at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. Oyster Farmer was her feature debut, and it ran about six months in Australia, grossing $2.6 million in the second half of 2005.
Notes by Paul Byrnes
This clip from a 2004 Australian feature film is divided into three distinct scenes. The first has Jack (Alex O’Lachlan) and Skippy (Jack Thompson) discussing love and life while fishing. A reunited Brownie and Trish (David Field and Kerry Armstrong) are then shown planning to retrieve an oyster lease, and the final scene shows a humorous exchange outside a shed where Brownie offers Jack an oyster lease on the condition he takes Brownie’s troublesome father Mumbles (Jim Norton) along with him.
Education notes provided by The Learning Federation and Education Services Australia
Jack and Skippy are sitting on a small jetty on a river, fishing.
Jack Hey, Skip?
Skippy What?
Jack You ever been in love?
Skippy turns to look at Jack.
Skippy No.
Skippy pauses and then looks sheepish.
Skippy Yeah.
He giggles.
Skippy I reckon everyone needs a drama. You know? Makes you feel more alive. Some bastards leap out of planes, some have a real big wedding, some lucky bastards even get laid and some poor fucks…
Skippy picks up a knife.
Skippy …carve themselves up. I reckon you best to know that part of yourself. ‘Cause it’s going to surface sooner or later, isn’t it? You don’t want it to come as a shock, eh? I used to have to kill people to get the rush. Now I’m happy to just go fishing.
Brownie and Trish sit on some old wooden steps by the water.
Brownie I’m going to get that bloody lease back off Johnson.
Trish Which one?
Brownie Up the back paddock. I mean let’s face it, it’s a mess. He hasn’t got a clue.
Trish And you have?
Brownie Too right.
They both smile.
Mumbles and Jack have finished fishing and are sitting outside, both asleep. A dog is also asleep, under the table. Brownie comes over. He begins to make instant coffee with the cups on the table.
Brownie Dad?
Mumbles Huh?
Brownie What would you say if we offered Jack here a couple of those leases up by the escarpment? Only take him a couple of years to pay them off.
Mumbles You don’t mean sublease?
Brownie Why not? He’s a good worker, we got to give him some incentive.
Jack has not opened his eyes yet but speaks, showing that he has been awake and listening to the conversation.
Jack What’s the catch?
Brownie You have to take the old man with you.
Jack Nup. No way.
Mumbles And why not?
Brownie I know. I know it’s a big ask but, look, me and Trish, we’re not going to make it if he’s out there on the barge all day, sticking his nose into everything.
Mumbles I do nothing of the sort.
Jack We’ll have to reconsider if he hasn’t croaked in a year.
Brownie Fair enough. So you’ll do it then?
Jack It’s a generous offer.
Brownie You’re a good man, Jack.
Brownie pats Jack on the chest.
Brownie Knew you wouldn’t let me down. Excuse me gents.
Brownie walks away. Jack smiles to himself.
Mumbles I’m not going to die, you can forget that straightaway. I’m still the head of this family, you hear me?
Brownie doesn’t respond, closing a roller door after him.
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.