George MacKay as Kelly and Essie Davis as his mother are both riveting. They are complex and angry and horrible and victims of a cruel class system that ensures they remain face down in the dirt. Each of the actors give incredible performances and are supported in doing so by Kurzel's complex style of story telling which is both visually exciting and off-putting while also gives time to his characters to breathe and grow into who they can be.
Kurzels' film is frenetic and intense. He hyperfocuses on both the high stakes of each moment and the emotional impact. In this the film is incredibly strong, giving purpose and pathoes to Kelly and his troupe. The film's take on Kelly is that he's forced into the life that he has, perhaps with another upbringing he would have been a civic leader or some other upstanding citizen. But faced with the world he grew up in, surrounded by the desperate adults who influenced him in his youth, he was given little to no choice but to step up and lean into the criminality his culture pushes him to. The film doesn't make him out to be a hero, his choices are celebrated. He's more tragic hero, left without choice, and brought down by his own mistakes.
But the film kept slipping into some pitfalls that I couldn't resolve in a way that felt okay. Kelly is often seen as a part of the hyper masculine culture of Australian identity and its push back against the effete British overlords who oppressed them. The film ties to wrestle with this a bit by playing with two ideas, the frock wearing of the bandits and the homoerotic connections between Kelly and the men in his life. It is an interesting narrative choice but I'm not sure the film manages it well. First I don't know if Kelly and his gang actually participated in the cross dressing phenomenon that some Bush Rangers did. It was a tactic seen as presenting instability perhaps madness and instill fear in ones enemies. The idea of gender bending as a way of signalling insanity is gross in itself but the way this film takes this on for Kelly is troubling. It portrays feminization of men as often a weakness to be disdained and the dress wearing as almost a necessary evil. For this to work the film needs to break through some of that discomfort in seeing men in dresses but it never gets there. It leaves it as if the dresses are a tool and nothing more. This perpetuates a kind of toxic masculinity which the film doesn't deal with.
This leads directly into how much the film sexualizes its male characters in titillating ways. Hoult, Hunnam, and MacKay are all presented nude often in sexual situations. MacKay even has a physicality with his character's good male friend which borders on a full on sex scene. He even kisses another man but this is again presented as a moment of performative madness. Still all the male affection transcends any of his relationships with women. Women's sexuality is often seen as vile, from his mother's need to be sexual to survive and his sisters being property for men to use. It is the men who get to be sexual in appealing ways, but always at moments of weakness. It is never presented as a position of strength. The film send us these unconscious messages about men nude and in dresses that is negative. The film's attempt to explore the problematic nature of masculinity in Australian history is noble but mishandled.
Despite these hurdles I found The True History succeeds where it tries to show just how limited Kelly and his people had it. His is the lashing out of a caged animal and it is tragically sad. He never truly stands for anything other than just survival. Many of those around him attempt to make it about standing for something but the films shows us this never really amounted to much. The film is gorgeous and painful in its exploration of those themes. As Kelly becomes more and more violent and his notorious acts are played out, they are not celebrated. They are increasingly horrific and sad. His end is portrayed as a desperate descent into madness. The film ends on a scene of proper Australian society celebrating and it feels truly unpleasant. The True History of the Kelly Gang is a bit of a gut punch, and perhaps that is the best way to tell the story of this history. Perhaps there isn't much good in it, perhaps it is a tale of the nation's shame instead of the nation's hero.
The True History of the Kelly Gang
Starring: George MacKay, Essie Davis, Russell Crowe, Charlie Hunnam, Nicholas Hoult
Director: Justin Kurzel
Writer: Shaun Grant
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