Sorry for being a tad obtuse. OK, here's the story...

Nicole is Lady Ashley, from a well to do aristocratic English family, whose husband is in Australia tending to his cattle ranching business interests. But Lady Ashley suspects that her husband's reason for staying away for so long is because of the native women, NOT the failing health of the ranch. So Lady Ashley decides to travel to Australia to convince her husband to sell the place and come back home.

Before she arrives, though, her husband is killed, supposedly by a native aborigine named King George, leaving the estate unsupervised except for a drunken old bookkeeper, a native housemaid, her niece, the niece's adorable half caste boy, Nullah, and a disreputable ranch hand who is robbing them blind.

When Lady Ashley discovers the sad state of the ranch and discovers the depth of the perfidy that the hand is perpetrating, she fires him and decides to try to make a go of it. What that entails is driving the cattle to Darwin Station to sell them to the military for the troops circa 1939.

But in order to do this she has to hire a drover. In walks Hugh Jackman, a.k.a. Drover. But because L.A. has fired the hands Drover has to use the people on hand, that is, the Chinese cook, the drunken bookkeeper, the native house maid, the 10 year old Nullah, Drover's best friend (another native aborigine) and Lady Ashley herself.

Ah, but the real problem is that their little ranch is set in the middle of a huge estate run by King Carney, who had been pressuring L.A.'s deceased husband into selling. Hmmmm. Sounds suspicious, no?

King Carney has already already delivered his cattle to the docks and is demanding top dollar price because he is the only supplier since Lord Ashley has conveniently died. It is in his best interests that the Ashley herd never makes it to Darwin, so he dispatches his evil future son in law to try to stop them.

Meanwhile Drover and the Lady fall in love, the little troupe has adventures, overcomes the evil future son in law and delivers the cattle to Darwin, undercutting King Carney's price. Yeah! The good guys win!

This would have been a good place to end the movie, but noooo. Because King Carney has belittled his erstwhile future s.i.l., the young man feeds Carney to the alligators, marries his daughter and then does his darnedest to mess up the lady and Drover's life.

That's it in a nutshell, all except the final 60 minutes of the movie. I won't ruin it for you, but Drover is driven out by L.A., Nullah is sent off to a mission orphanage and the Japanese bomb Darwin Station and the harbor. How it all pans out will be left for you to discover.

There are a couple of sub plots and themes that run through the movie, chiefest being the history of English racial prejudice, manifested in the policy of taking half caste children and teaching the Aborigine out of them.

Highlighting this sordid tale is the appearance of Nullah's native grandfather, King George, a magic man/shaman, who is calling Nullah to go "walkabout" and enter manhood. Nullah is torn between his friends and the love and attention he gets from Lady Ashley, and the much deeper call to his heritage.

There is hardly a scene that goes by where we do not see King George in the background, just standing, observing, and occasionally chanting some native song. His presence is sort of a totemic, figurative representation for the land itself, juxtaposing itself with the English policies of Anglofication. His presence is not overdone as such things are in some films, bludgeoning the viewer over the head screaming "This is important!!!" Rather it also helps move the story along as well as helping in the resolution of all things.

A second, lesser theme is the song "Somewhere Over The Rainbow", specifically the line that speaks about dreams coming true, since "dreaming" is an integral part of the Aborigine culture. The little boy, Nullah, learns the song from Lady Ashley when she tries to comfort him by telling him the story of "The Wizard Of Oz", and helping him to sneak into a movie theater in Darwin to see the film.

So, overall, "Australia" is a two hour and forty-five minute epic that throws so much at the viewer that it is impossible to NOT please everyone with something. Is it a masterpiece? No. Is it Oscar nomination material? Sure. But will it win? Who knows?

My suggestion is that you spend the $10 or so to see the film and judge for yourself, but MY rating, out of five is.....