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Rabbit-Proof Fence
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 31 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 28 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by:
Christine Olsen
Doris Pilkington (book Follow the rabbit-proof fence)
Directed by: Phillip Noyce
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 29, 2002
DVD: April 15, 2003
Running Time: 94 minutes, Color
Origin: Australia
Summary
RATING: PG for emotional thematic material
Starring Everlyn Sampi, Tianna Sansbury, Laura Monaghan, David Gulpilil, Ningali Lawford, Myarn Lawford, Deborah Mailman, and Jason Clarke
The true story of Molly Craig, a young black Australian girl who leads her younger sister and cousin in an escape from an internment camp, set up as a part of a government policy to train Aboriginal children as domestic workers and integrate them into white society. (Miramax)
Also On Metacritic
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Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
The result is a film that outrages and fills the viewer with poetry that's at once epic and intimate, scandalizing and life-affirming -- a real work of art.
Time Richard Corliss
This is a chase movie (Simon Legree after three Little Evas) across parched outback terrain, captured with rapturous authenticity by cinematographer Christopher Doyle.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
I love Rabbit-Proof Fence as drama, as protest, as moviemaking and as poetry.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Jonathan Curiel
A breathtaking story of defiance and triumph that has to be considered one of the year's most sublime films.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Searing dramatization of a story of remarkable courage, stamina and spirit.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
Noyce uses his Hollywood craft to unfold this primal, powerful story, he has an epic feel for the harshly beautiful Australian landscape and he gets wonderfully natural performances from the three girls. His bold, lyrical images stay in your head, like an unaccountably beautiful nightmare.
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
A movie of minimalist moments (Molly's tiniest gestures speak volumes) and lovely, almost holy tableaux.
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The final scene of the film contains an appearance and a revelation of astonishing emotional power; not since the last shots of "Schindler's List" have I been so overcome with the realization that real people, in recent historical times, had to undergo such inhumanity.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
The rabbits, foolishly introduced to a land that couldn't support them as they bred and dispersed, are symbols of the English: ravenous, unheeding, ineradicable and a constant threat to the native way of life.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
At an economical 94 minutes, Rabbit-Proof Fence trims all the fat and tells its heartfelt and stirring story. This is one of 2002's most memorable imports.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Noyce honors the story best by standing back (and getting Kenneth Branagh, as a supercilious official, to stand back, too): Noyce lets the landscape and the untrained young actresses own the screen, particularly the naturally magnetic Everlyn Sampi.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak
Noyce's movie is a testament to endurance -- the camera caresses the landscape -- instilling us with a respect and reverence for it, its harsh ways and the attachment to it that Australia's indigenous people hold.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
Thrilling, heart-wrenching tale of the real-life incredible journey.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
Although the movie, adapted from a book by Doris Pilkington Garimara, pushes emotional buttons and simplifies its true story to give it the clean narrative sweep of an extended folk ballad, it never goes dramatically overboard.
Read Full Review >Variety David Stratton
It succeeds emotionally in the cause of what seems to be its primary aim, to advance an attitudinal change in Australians not normally sympathetic to the aboriginal cause.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Noyce wants us to feel the joy of the homecoming, but he's honest enough to show, in a coda that tells what happened to the girls after their break for home, how Rabbit Proof Fence finally must be more a tale of courage than of victory.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
The story is so black-and-white that one feels like hissing the villain (Kenneth Branagh) and cheering the heroines at every stage, but it's so amazing that the simplicity of the telling seems warranted.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
Where Noyce could easily have given Branagh a mustache and tilted the film toward old-fashioned melodrama, he leans on tactics that are less obvious and more effective.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Michael Atkinson
Based on a memoir by a grown daughter of the eldest girl and rarely digressing from the journey itself, the movie is a dusty, calloused, primal Odyssey, as forceful and single-minded as a bullet train.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis
An old-fashioned weepie tucked inside a fiercely indicting political thriller.
Read Full Review >The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
Noyce has treated this story almost like a page of holy writ. If he has erred, it is in the very awe of his approach.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Its adult themes of familial separation and societal betrayal are head and shoulders above much of the director’s previous popcorn work -– more hurt, more heart, more unassailable hope.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Noyce paces this amazing story well, and even if his young actors don't seem to have physically suffered as much as they would during such a long journey, he makes extremely good use of the bleak Outback scenery.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder
Characters are so well-drawn, so human - that even in the harsh light of history - it remains difficult to understand how Australia allowed such inhumanity to become institutional, mechanized and accepted.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
As ambitious as this may be, however, the movie's objectives tax its energy even as the girls' plight tears at your heart.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Here, Noyce lets his camera, the geography and the youngsters tell this exceptionally powerful story.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Jean Oppenheimer
The story itself is absolutely amazing, and the sense of outrage it evokes is universal, but director Noyce faces a difficult task in that once the story is set in motion there is very little action, other than walking shots of the girls, and almost no dialogue.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Clint Morris
The performances of young Sampi, Monaghan and Sansbury are amazing. They’re immersing and compelling.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Not until the final shot does Noyce rise up to the potential of the history: There's a sudden shiver of recognition, that, my God, these people really lived this.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Phil Hall
Achieves the impossible by taking one of the most compelling and harrowing stories imaginable and channeling it into one of the most ordinary movies of the year.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Kenneth Branagh overplays his portrayal of Neville, but most of the other characters are skillfully acted by a solid cast, including the great Aborigine actor David Gulpilil as the tracker. In all, this is a watchable movie that's not quite the memorable experience it might have been.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 28 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
[Anonymous] gave it a10:
A flim that truely depicts the horrors man can inflict upon man.
patrick d. gave it a9:
Dramatic and brilliant.
[Anonymous] gave it an8:
A surprisingly interesting adventure. That evil Nevelle is unbeleivably evil. I'm glad those kids escaped, but it wasn't so much an escape as it was a rebellion, a protest against what was being done to them.
Mark D. gave it a0:
This great film is ruined by its untrue plots, I agree with Tony.
raVen gave it a 9:
Powerful in the REAL sense of the word--not the way that announcer uses it every week to describe the next "ER" as "the most powerful episode ever." Against the signature Austrailian landscape, there are parts where the camera work is almost lyrical. Like when the girls are at one end of the fence and the mother is at the other. And phrases like "breeding out" the inferior blood never cease to inspire chills. Important and beautifully photographed movie.
Pat C. gave it a 9:
Near-perfection without the hype. Somewhat overedited - the story is compelling enough to tolerate more elaboration of events & characters - especially Branagh, whose character depth as a bureaucrat without a personal life is established in a deft 5 seconds. It would be simplistic to presume this movie is mere protest against aboriginal policy. It is more precisely a statement of the socialistic forces in politics that encourage government meddling as preferred parenting for children (except our own of course). In the case of the Aussie mindset (a derivative of the British Empire mindset), once again we see the belief that anything done is OK as long as proper manners are exhibited in the process. The inhumanity continues. Politically pre-empted from savaging Aboriginies, Aussie social engineers now trash the lives of another subset of children, those "half-castes" of divorced white parents. There is no political will to preserve for such children their essential need for two parents, only to plunder one of the parents into ruin for child support while running him/her off. The horror of this film appears to be Aussie injustice to the original land tenants, but that was merely a precursor of Aussie injustice to Aussies as their self-assured system turns on itself.
Julie B. gave it an 8:
Moving, powerful, skillful. TONY Y. Who told you that, a nice white fella? Horribly misrepresenting the actual and undeniable facts of genocide.
