Rabbit-Proof Fence has the best of intentions. The simply told story is sweet, sincere and absolutely positive. It’s also incredibly boring.

The based-on-a-true-story plot deals with some half-white, half-aborigine’s in 1930’s Australia who are taken away from their families as part of a program to educate and civilize the aborigines. After three young girls are taken from their mothers and put into the institution, they quickly decide they liked it better at home and run away.

The greater part of the film shows the girls on their 1500 mile trip across Australia on foot. They are able to find their way because there’s a rabbit-proof fence that goes across the country and passes through their own homeland, so they know that if they keep following, they’ll eventually make it.

The girls struggle along, scrounging or begging for food wherever they can find it – which strangely enough materializes quite frequently out in the middle of nowhere. Though making it across the country by themselves is a difficult enough task, they also have to avoid the group of men who are searching for them. The search is led by Mr. Neville (Kenneth Branagh), who is in charge of the Australian aborigine program.

Like the girls’ journey itself, Rabbit-Proof Fence always seems like it’s never getting where it wants to go. It wants us to feel for the plight of the girls, but it’s rarely engaging. It wants us to scoff at the “racist” views of Neville, but it often seems like he’s right. It wants to impress us with the strength and determination of the girls – which it does – but it fails to do anything with it.

Though beautifully shot and wonderfully acted, Rabbit-Proof Fence is a tedious journey that just goes on without ever really reaching its destination.

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