This is the sort of film described as a "sweeping romantic melodrama," a broad family entertainment that would never have been made without the burning obsession of its producers (Luhrmann for Australia, David O. Selznick for GWTW). Coming from a director known for his punk-rock Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet and the visual pyrotechnics of Moulin Rouge, it is exuberantly old-fashioned, and that's a compliment.

The movie is set in 1939. Hitler has invaded Poland. The armies of the free world will need beef. On a remote northern ranch named Faraway Downs, a cattle drover named simply Drover (Hugh Jackman) runs things day-to-day after the murder of the owner. Arriving from England, Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) comes to crack down on her philandering husband but arrives to find he is dead. Now the owner of an expanse as large as some countries, she arrives dressed for tea. The British long followed the practice of dressing in warm climates as if they were not, and Lady Ashley keeps up the standard.

Here is the situation she finds: Drover is a rough-hewn free-standing cowboy who has never seen a woman anything like her. He runs Faraway Downs with experienced Aborigine ranch hands, and has under his special protection the Aboriginal boy Nullah (Brandon Walters), who is 11 or 12. Nullah's grandfather was King George (David Gulpilil, who played a boy about Nullah's age in Walkabout from 1971). Nullah is a beautiful boy, biracial, bright, filled with insight, and he provides the narration for the film.

As Australia is essentially a western, there must be an evil rancher with a posse of stooges, and there is: King Carney (Bryan Brown). He wants to add Faraway Downs to his empire. Much will depend on whether Carney or Faraway can be first to deliver cattle to the port city of Darwin. Lady Ashley, prepared to sell out to Carney, sees things that make her reconsider, and determines to join Drover, Nullah and a ragtag band on a cattle drive that will eventually lead into No Man's Land. Meanwhile, the delicate lady and rugged Drover fall in love, just like Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler.

She grows to love the boy and emotionally adopts him. Nullah is under constant threat of being swept up by the local police, enforcing a national policy of "capturing" part-white Aboriginal children and taking them to missions where they can "have the black bred out of them" and trained to be servants. Incredibly, this practice was ended by Australia only in 1973.

Luhrmann, known for his close work with the camera, pulls back to show the magnificent landscape and the enormity of the cattle drive. The cattle are mostly CGI, which explains how they can seem to stampede toward a high cliff. No doubt some will find this scene hokey, but it also provides the dramatic high point of the movie, with Nullah channelling the teachings of his grandfather.

GWTW, for all its faults and racial stereotyping, at least represented a world its makers believed in. Australia envisions a world intended largely as fable, and that robs it of some power. Still, it is gorgeous, and what strong performances, what exhilarating images, and -- yes, what sweeping romantic melodrama. The kind of movie that is a movie, with all the word promises and implies.