Review: The Road From Coorain

Mothers and their children have connections that can inspire them to greatness or can hold them captive to expectation and the fear of being left alone. Learning when to break the apron strings is an important lesson Jill Conway learns in the film based on her book, The Road to Corrain.

Jill and her family are strong independent people that desire to succeed in life. Jill is born and raised on acres of wild Australian rangeland on the edge of the desert. Her father raises sheep for a living, and her brothers help him in the work. Jill’s mom has the spirit of a pioneer woman and has worked very hard to build a dignified and proper home for her family.

Early in Jill’s family relationships, the viewer can see the great amount of expectation and promise that is associated with her abilities to learn, read and eventually become the matron of her family. Jill proves her academic abilities to her mother as she is home–schooled and in return aids her father with the herds of sheep after her brothers have been sent off to boarding school. It is her passion for helping her father that comforts him during a drought that kills off much of his stock.

Tragedy is a catalyst for Jill’s development as a mature individual. Just as she learned to read while her mother lanced a boil on her leg, Jill learns to care for her father’s business during the drought. This knowledge proves to be invaluable after the sudden death of her father, as she emotionally supports her mother through economic trials.

Undoubtedly, Eve takes situations into her own hands by selling of some of her furniture and moving the city to find work after her husband’s death, but Jill takes on what seems to be a role of friend, peer and equal—more than a traditional mother and daughter relationship. Jill also begins to attend formal schooling when the family moves into the city. Jill thrives in school and earns many awards for her abilities, but instead of her mother’s support and approval, Jill begins to receive sarcasm and criticism from her mother. In some ways, her mother is responsible for emphasizing the importance of education, but perhaps her extreme working strains caused her to resent her daughter’s opportunity for successes.

The family succeeds in turning the family business into a profitable one, so education and privilege are given to all the children and her Mother. All three children struggle with pressure to satisfy and impress their mother. The oldest brother, even after given a car for his birthday, feels unacceptable in his mother’s eyes. After the sudden death of her eldest brother, Jill again takes on the role of matron, as her mother regresses into the shell of grief and despair she had visited after the death of her husband. Jill’s next oldest brother escapes from his mother’s emotional extremes by returning to Coorain to run the family business. Jill continues her education, but dutifully cares for her grief-stricken mother on a daily basis.

As Jill nears graduation, her mother seems to improve as she hopes for Jill to pursue becoming a doctor. But Jill’s denial of her mother’s wishes causes her mother to become more erratic in her effort to hold onto her.

Over time, Jill becomes aware that if she is ever going to be happy she needs to follow after her heart. She does so and ends up involved with a married American businessman. This relationship helps Jill to realize a great deal about love, choice and how unselfish decisions made in love usually have the greatest results. Jill wants to be with this man, but decides to send him home to be with his family as she understands how terrible it is to lose a father. Jill becomes more aware through her interactions with this man that children need to move away from their parents at some point. Jill knows that she must pursue her dreams of becoming a history professor or be content with the choices in her life.

Eve was an amazing woman who had great abilities and a potential, but she allowed loss and bitterness to poison her love for others by pushing it into efforts to contain and control them. Jill respected the beginning that Eve gave her in life, but she understood that it was her life—not her mother’s. Jill could have tried to control every relationship around her, but power wasn’t her desire. Love was her desire all along.

Love taught her to read. Love taught her to care for the sheep. Love taught her to support and care for those people who were hurting around her. Love taught her to be unselfish and give back what wasn’t hers in the first place; and to chase after what was.

The Road from Coorain teaches families that tragedy and loss can be overcome, but the biggest tragedy occurs when controlling others becomes more important than loving them.