Ah yes: the opportunistic city slicker who exits the fast lane and rediscovers the important things in life. This is usually achieved via interactions with other people: in Rain Man, for instance, Tom Cruise’s money-hungry collectibles dealer spends time with his estranged brother, who inspires him to see the world differently. In the family film Kangaroo, Ryan Corr’s character Chris nurses an adorable joey back to health – a process that reinvigorates him spiritually and provides the audience with many cute-tastic moments: “I WANT ONE, I WANT ONE!”
Director Kate Woods – helming her first feature since 2000’s Looking for Alibrandi – crafts a redemption narrative, though the film isn’t prepared to really sully its protagonist. Chris is hardly a villain, though he does work in the seventh circle of hell (commonly known as “breakfast television”) and triggers a situation that leads to a dolphin’s death after he jumps into the ocean and attempts to save it (this scene should remind all youngsters to never attempt anything brave).
As punishment from the gods, Chris loses his job and gets stranded in a small outback town, following in the footsteps of tortured souls a la John Grant from Wake in Fright and Teddy from Welcome to Woop Woop. But there’s an upside: Chris gets to raise a joey after running over its mother.
Wait, let’s make that sound nicer: Chris gets to raise a joey following another accident that’s sort of his fault but not really condemnable. He tries to offload the cute little thing, but soon realises he’s its only chance.
The protagonist’s path intersects with Charlie (Lily Whiteley), a sweet-natured Indigenous girl who embodies the film’s optimistic, perhaps slightly naive spirit. She really loves kangaroos and would ordinarily have taken care of the joey but, in a narratively convenient development, has recently been instructed by her mother Rosie (Deborah Mailman) to scale back her roo-related activities.
Charlie’s grandparents Gwennie (Trisha Morton-Thomas) and Ralph (Wayne Blair) allow Chris to stay in their shack-like guest house, where (the horror!) there’s no shower, toilet, or room service.
It’s fun to see Chris thrown out of his comfort zone and poked a bit, even if things come a little easy to him. As soon as Chris invites the joey into his bed, you know his journey to become a better person is more or less complete, with subsequent events – including the inevitable temptation to return to his previous life – feeling like box-ticking. The half-hearted deployment of a nefarious character – a rough bloke who insists he has a right to kill roos – is such a calculated move from the writers (Harry Cripps and Melina Marchetta) that it feels almost cynical.
Tonally, the experience is about right, Woods imbuing Kangaroo with pleasing rhythms and a generally even pace. It’s certainly not in a hurry – big dramatic events are few and far between – and while it’s not slow, the film’s joints begin to feel a little heavy into the second hour as the plot becomes more episodic with Chris participating in community events and endearing himself to the locals. All the performances are pretty good, but nobody knocks it out of the park.
It’s nice to see a movie in which caring for animals is the point, rather than having them used to pursue particular narrative goals – ie winning a tournament to save the family farm. Having said that, Kangaroo doesn’t do enough to explore the painful challenge of saying goodbye. Feeding joeys with baby bottles and putting them in backpacks is cute, but everybody knows this isn’t where they really belong. Doing more to flesh out that old “if you love them, let them go” proverb might’ve given the film some melancholic substance.
Instead, things predictably get a little cheesy. You have to hold your nose a bit towards the end – though it remains a pleasantly staged, hard-to-hate experience.
Kangaroo is in cinemas now in Australia, and is out 30 January 2026 in the UK
