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Paperback Hero
Australia 1998
Reviewed by Rachel Malik
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Lucktown, Queensland, Australia, the present. Jack is a trucker who's just published a first, best-selling romance in secret, under the pseudonym of 'Ruby Vale', the name of his best friend. His publisher Ziggy arrives in their outback town hoping to persuade 'Ruby Vale' to come to Sydney to promote the book. Jack persuades the unwilling Ruby to pretend she's the author on the condition that the publishers pay for her wedding to her longstanding fiancé Hamish. The news that the plain-speaking, plane-loving Ruby has written a romance comes as a surprise to the town, but they're persuaded "everyone has at least one novel in them".
En route to Sydney, Jack fills Ruby in on "the creative process", while she reads the novel, intrigued by the similarities between the protagonists and themselves, a resemblance Jack denies unpersuasively. In the city, disoriented by the media glitz, they also realise they are in love. But their deception is discovered by both Ziggy and Hamish back home. Ziggy confronts Jack about his lie and demands he doesn't tell Ruby he knows; Hamish arrives in Sydney determined on an explanation. Ruby discovers Ziggy knows their secret and heads back home with a pacified Hamish, while Jack 'comes out' on television and stays in Sydney. Back in Lucktown, Hamish and Ruby have made plans to move away together, but at the last moment she refuses to leave. Jack arrives back to find Ruby has gone off on her own. Terrified of flying, he nevertheless takes off to find her on the open road and succeeds.
Review
The premise which underlies Anthony J. Bowman's Paperback Hero (his previous film Cappuccino remains unreleased in the UK) is that fiction is always and inevitably autobiography. Trucker Jack doesn't look like a romance novelist: he spends most of his time on the road talking to his dog, making periodic returns to his outback hometown, a rickety, dusty, one-bar, one-café place where, as the folklore goes, men are men and the sheep are frightened. But while Jack may not look like a romance novelist, he certainly looks like a romantic lead. He's so certain men don't 'do' romance he publishes under a pseudonym - Ruby Vale - the name of the woman with whom he is unknowingly in love. She is also the barely disguised heroine of his novel, playing opposite a skimpily veiled version of Jack. The book is a success, and Ruby is persuaded by Jack to pretend to be its author. Ruby is no blushing, pastel Barbara Cartland but a crop-dusting pilot (who again just happens to look like a romantic lead); she doesn't speak the language of romance, but she agrees on the condition the publishers pay for her wedding. This is clearly a film which conceives romantic comedy as a combination of opposites attracting and unlikely juxtapositions. The problem is that Jack and Ruby are two of a kind: his trucker's-eye-view of the open, empty space of the road is like her perspective from the air, a point illustrated by the opening sequence's editing. It is perfectly obvious they should be together, and while the pleasures of romance are significantly about knowing what is going to happen before the protagonists do, there are clearly more and less successful ways of working this out.
And so we have the unlikely juxtapositions: the trucker who is romantically literate is intended to undercut the archetype of outback masculinity but in fact reinforces it. There is an equally clichéd opposition between city and country. The city is represented by the cynical, commerce-driven world of publishing, all cocktail parties and interchangeable execs, personified by Ziggy, whose power dressing and micro-eating are the antithesis of blunt but deep outback values. "In the city you can be anyone," she says without irony, staring out at the Sydney skyline from her metal and glass apartment. Jack and Ruby, by contrast, are simple souls: he parks his truck outside the slick downtown offices of the publisher; she is anxious about wearing a cocktail frock. But these are markers of their authenticity, as is the way they can only declare their love to each other by doing a duet of 'Crying' in a karaoke match (for which they win a turkey).
Credits
- Producers
- Lance W. Reynolds
- John Winter
- Screenplay
- Antony J. Bowman
- Director of Photography
- David Burr
- Editor
- Veronika Jenet
- Production Designer
- Jon Dowding
- Music/Music Producer
- Burkhard Dallwitz
- ©Australian Film Finance Corporation Limited/the State of Queensland and Paperback Films Pty Limited
- Production Companies
- Australian Film Finance Corporation presents a Paperback Films production
- A Lance W. Reynolds production
- Film developed with the assistance of Archer Films Entertainment
- Co-financed by the Pacific Film and Television Commission
- Co-producer
- Dani Rogers
- Production Executive
- Archer Entertainment:
- Pamela Suchman
- Production Co-ordinator
- Stottie
- Sydney Co-ordinator
- Sandy Stevens
- Production Manager
- Rosslyn Abernethy
- Unit Manager
- Dave Suttor
- Location Managers
- Chris Strewe
- Sydney:
- Robin Clifton
- Post-production Supervisor
- Sylvia Walker-Wilson
- Assistant Directors
- Charles Rotherham
- Matthew Bartley
- Marc Ashton
- 2nd Unit:
- Rob Visser
- Marc Ashton
- Continuity
- Jenny Quigley
- Casting
- Director:
- Faith Martin
- Associate:
- Kristin Dale
- Script Consultants
- Katherine Butler
- Katharine Thornton
- 2nd Unit Director of Photography
- Ian 'Thistle' Thorburn
- Camera Operator
- Richard Merryman
- TV Insert Compilation
- Bruce Redman
- Star Footage
- Matt Butler
- Digital Effects
- Conja
- Digital Effects Producer:
- Bruce Williamson
- Flame Artist:
- Morgane Furio
- Illusion Artist:
- Chris Leaver
- Scanning/Recording
- DFilm Services
- Special Effects
- Co-ordinator:
- Mark Harry Ward
- Technician:
- Peter Keane
- Art Director
- Adam Head
- Set Decorator
- Paul Hurrell
- Graffiti Artist
- Ben Hurrell
- Artist
- Andrew Best
- Sign Artist
- Quentin Hall
- Photographic Artist
- Tony Falloon
- Draughter
- Andrew Hays
- Scenic Artists
- Adam Smigielski
- Bob Daley
- Costume Designer
- Louise Wakefield
- Costume Supervisor
- Graham Purcell
- Make-up/Hair Supervisor
- Margaret Stevenson
- Make-up Artist
- Maree McDonald
- Hairdresser
- Peter Woodward
- Title Design
- Optical & Graphic
- Featured Electric Guitar
- David Herzog
- Music Performed by
- The Victorian Philharmonic Orchestra
- Orchestra Leader:
- Rudolf Osadnik
- Percussion:
- Geoffrey Hales
- Violin:
- Matthew Arnold
- Orchestrations/Conductor
- Daryl McKenzie
- Additional Music Editing
- Gary O'Grady
- Music Recordists
- Michael Letho
- Robin Gray
- Fairlight MFX 3 Operator
- Keith Thomas
- Soundtrack
- "Crying" by Roy Orbison, Joe Melson, performed by Roy Orbison, also performed by Hugh Jackman & Claudia Karvan; "Oh Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison, Bill Dees; "Only the Lonely" by Roy Orbison, Joe Melson, performed by Roy Orbison; "JD Blues" by/performed by Scott Kingman; "Proud Man" by Jon Stevens, Barbara Griffin, performed by Jon Stevens; "Mairi's Wedding" traditional bagpipe march, performed/arranged by Scott Nugent; "Paper Tiger" by John D. Loudermilk, performed by Sue Thompson; "Strangers in the Night" by Bert Kaempfert, Charles Singleton, Eddie Snyder; "I Remember You" by John H. Mercer, Victor Schertzinger, performed by Frank Ifield; "Suddenly" by/performed by Soraya; "High" by Paul Tucker, Emmanuel Baiyewu, performed by Lighthouse Family; "I Drove All Night" by Tom Kelly, Billy Steinberg, performed by Roy Orbison; "She's Taken My Words (theme from Paperback Hero)" by Andrew Tierney, Michael Tierney, performed by Human Nature
- Sound Supervisors
- John Dennison
- Tony Vaccher
- Sound Recordist
- Greg Burgmann
- Re-recording Mixers
- Tony Vaccher
- John Dennison
- Dialogue Editor
- Ross Brewer
- Sound Effects
- John Cowper Patterson
- ADR
- Recordist:
- John Dennison
- Recording, London:
- The Bridge
- Tom Livsey
- Foley
- Artist:
- Paul Huntingford
- Recordist:
- Duncan McAllister
- Editors:
- John Dennison
- Duncan McAllister
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Danny Baldwin
- Dog Trainer
- Sue Thompson
- Action Vehicles Co-ordinator
- Mark Harry Ward
- Bi-plane Pilot
- Bruce McGarvie
- Cessna Pilots
- Daryl Jones
- Jason O'toole
- 2nd Unit Helicopter
- Geoff McTaggart
- Cast
- Claudia Karvan
- Ruby Vale
- Hugh Jackman
- Jack Willis
- Angie Milliken
- Ziggy Keane
- Andrew S. Gilbert
- Hamish
- Jeanie Drynan
- Suzie
- Bruce Venables
- Artie
- Barry Rugless
- Mad Pete
- Barry Lea
- policeman
- Stephen Collins
- café drinker
- Randel Ross
- auctioneer
- Bill Watson
- Mr Reece
- Scott Nugent
- Buck's night bag pipe player
- Brooke Fairley
- dancing girl
- Ross Marsden
- country drinker
- Charlie Little
- Errol
- Ritchie Singer
- Ralph
- Tony Barry
- Mack
- Larissa Chen
- receptionist
- Vashti Pontaks
- Ella
- Michael Forde
- journalist
- Catherine Miller
- contestant
- Andrew Buchanan
- city drunk
- Simon Burvill-Homes
- M.C.
- Leon Delaney
- radio announcer
- Daniel Murphy
- make-up artist
- Adam Ray
- Clive Rooney
- Doughlas Hedge
- George West
- Russell Dykstra
- stagehand
- Robyn Moore
- Steve Ridley
- character voices
- Diana McLean
- Harmony
- Benny
- Lance, the dog
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
- 8,685 feet
- 96 minutes 30 seconds
- Dolby
- In Colour