Subj : "So egregiously bad its often compelling": Baz Luhrman's new Hulu
To   : All
From : TechnologyDaily
Date : Tue Nov 28 2023 14:00:05

"So egregiously bad its often compelling": Baz Luhrman's new Hulu show is 
splitting critics

Date:
Tue, 28 Nov 2023 13:52:51 +0000

Description:
Lurhman's Faraway Downs was never going to please everyone, but critics seem 
to really dislike it

FULL STORY
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We knew Baz Luhrman's Faraway Downs , which has just arrived on Hulu , was 
going to be divisive: the show is an edited version of Lurhman's least 
popular film , Australia , recut into a series of six episodes with stacks of 
new footage. The movie attracted its fair share of critical brickbats, and 
now the show is doing the same. 

Let's start with the positives, though. RogerEbert.com praised the way the 
movie's style, saying it "simply looks better than most modern TV", while the 
San Francisco Chronicle offered a nuanced take: "This is old-fashioned 
storytelling, with all the strengths and weaknesses that term implies. 
Luhrmann is a showman who revels in his own extravagance. Sometimes youre in 
the mood for that." But such voices are far from the being dominant. What are 
the negative reviews of Faraway Downs saying? 

Writing in Australian paper The Age , Kylie Northover gives the show a 
grudging two and a half stars. The romance between Jackman and Kidman is 
"hackneyed" with a particularly wooden performance by Kidman, and "the acting 
is so egregiously bad its often compelling." And while Luhrman's attempts to 
highlight the story of the Stolen Generation are well intentioned, that 
storyline "remains somewhat superficial". 

 The Guardian 's Phil Harrison isn't a fan either, giving the show just one 
star. Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman play "two of the worst characters ever" 
and the series "is as vast and empty as the country it explores." The show is 
"clumsy, confused, borderline exploitative and totally lacking a good story." 

 Variety 's Aramide Tinubu doesn't so much give the show both barrels as 
shoot it repeatedly, cut it into pieces, wallop the pieces with a shovel and 
then shoot each of the pieces again just to be safe: "If Luhrmann sought to 
make the Australian version of Gone With the Wind , containing all of the 
paternalism, magical Negros and clichs that beset the majority of Hollywood 
flicks during the Golden Age, Faraway Downs would be considered an 
accomplishment" and the show "does little to shift the series away from pure 
spectacle, where white folks are favored and people of color are sacrificed." 

So, it may not make its way into our list of the best Hulu shows , but it 
certainly isn't getting only negative reviews  at the time of writing, it's 
at about 50% on Rotten Tomatoes. If you'd like to find out for yourself, 
Faraway Downs is streaming now on Hulu in the US, and Disney Plus worldwide . 
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Link to news story:
https://www.techradar.com/streaming/hulu/so-egregiously-bad-its-often-compelli
ng-baz-luhrmans-new-hulu-show-is-splitting-critics


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