An Australian road movie directed by George Miller. Unfortunately this is not the one that made Mad Max and won an Oscar for Happy Feet.
This is the other Australian director called George Miller even though it features a Mad Max type car chase scene in the outback.
Over the Hill is a truly banal film. Alma (Olympia Dukakis) is now widowed and flies over from America to Sydney to visit her daughter Elizabeth.
The timing of her visit is unfortunate. A snap election is called and Elizabeth and her politician husband do not want Alma around.
So Alma gets a supercharged hotrod and plans to drive to Melbourne with little money. She meets a couple engaged in petty cons, a group of thugs in the outback who she sees off as she just happens to have a stick of gelignite. Alma keeps bumping into a retired dentist called Dutch (Derek Fowlds) who drives about in his wagon.
While it is on the road and Alma has a journey of self discovery. The film is passable. It becomes mind numbingly awful each time her daughter Elizabeth shows up. Not only is she cruel and obnoxious to her mother, she does not even ask if Alma needs anything.
Apparently Elizabeth's anger towards her mother is because Alma let her husband dominate her life and never stood up for herself. So that is it in a nutshell, be callous and cruel to your mother because she took it from your father.
This is a truly hackneyed movie with a script that looks like it has been chopped and changed. It does not flow and makes little sense as it changes genres too often. At one point Alma spends time taking part in some ritual with Aboriginals which inspires her to go back to her daughter to find out what is affecting Elizabeth. If this was a play it would had closed on the opening night.
The only interesting point was to see Derek Fowlds who was best known for Yes Minister/Prime Minister playing an older romantic lead with a pony tail. It's almost like Mr Derek had Basil Brush on his head and both of them had to hide out in Australia under a witness protection program. Maybe Rod Hull and Emu took a contract out on them.
Derek Fowlds died in January 2020. Just how highly he was regarded was demonstrated in his funeral service, Basil Brush popped up to deliver a eulogy.
