The movie is based upon the 1901 self-published novel by Australian writer Miles Franklin. It tells the story of a freedom-loving woman who eschews the traditions of the past by forgoing marriage for a career. Sybylla Melvyn (Judy Davis) lives a dreary existence with her impoverished farming family in rural Possum Gully in New South Wales, Australia in 1897. As Sybylla's mother (Julia Blake) can no longer support her, she finds for her daughter a position as a general servant. "Servant?" exclaims the spirited Sybylla, rejecting the idea. Later that evening the mother complains to the father (Alan Hopgood), "Useless, plain, and Godless." Sybylla tells her attractive sister Gertie (Marion Shad) about her hopes and dreams of being an accomplished writer. So it comes as a relief for Sybylla when her well-to-do Grandmother Bossier (Aileen Broton) agrees to take her in at more comfortable Caddagat. Aunt Helen (Wendy Hughes) becomes Sybylla's temporary confidante. Helped by the servant Ethel, beauty treatments give plain-looking Sybylla some confidence. But like her parents, Sybylla's grandma and aunt expect her to follow matrimonial tradition. While recovering from a cold, Sybylla tells them that she wants a career in literature or art or music, and has no intention of marriage. One day while blossom-picking, she meets charming bachelor Harry Beecham (Sam Neill). Over time Sybylla rejects several proposals, including those of Harry. Her grandmother advises her that marriage for love is less important than marriage for money. Furthermore, says the grandma, a woman receives "respectability" upon matrimony. At a lively shindig at Five Bob Downs Sybylla does take exception to the attraction that other young ladies have for Harry. After the ball, Aunt Gussie tells Sybylla that "Loneliness is a terrible price to pay for independence." Of course, Sybylla remembers that her own mother had married for love and ended up in a tedious existence. And Sybylla has no liking for arranged marriages. Meanwhile Sybylla's dad has gotten further into financial difficulty with a chap named McSwatt. Grandma tells Sybylla that she would be accepted as governess to McSwatt's children to pay the interest on the 500 pounds that dad owes. The McSwatt kids are dirty-faced and boisterous, but Sybylla shows patience, and is not afraid to use the rod. Her job eventually ended – actually cut short – she returns home to Possum Gully. After regaining some of his family's monetary losses, Harry Beecham shows up and again proposes marriage. The intractable Sybylla again delays matters even though Harry seems to be a good match, a man who will not squelch her strong-willed nature. In the last scene, Sybylla mails a large manuscript to Blackwoods Publishers of Edinburgh, Scotland. The closing caption reads "'My Brilliant Career' was published in 1901." Directed by a woman, Gillian Armstrong, the movie is well-filmed among the natural countryside of meadows, lakes, and hillsides of New South Wales. It presents appropriate period costumes and hair styles that evoke well the dawn of the twentieth century.

An impossibly young Judy Davis is the star of "My Brilliant Career" - the movie that started hers - a 1979 film directed by Gillian Armstrong. The story concerns Sybylla, growing up in the 1890s in the wilds of Australia who wants more from her life than marriage. She is sent to live with her grandmother, where relatives tame her wild hair, soften her coarse skin, but can't do anything about her spirit. Though she falls for a wealthy young man (Sam Neil), she is true to what her heart tells her, desiring most of all to be a writer and an independent person.Davis does a wonderful job as Sybylla who, although headstrong, manages to make the best of whatever situation she's in. What a life for women back then. Her family can't afford to keep her, so there is pressure on her to marry or take a position. Living with her grandmother affords her some great opportunities for a better life. But when her father owes a local farmer money, she is sent to teach his illiterate children in order to work off the loan. Somehow, she turns that into a positive experience - though when you see the beginning scenes of her life there, you won't imagine she ever could. Sam Neil is very attractive and romantic as Harry, who endeavors to understand this unusual woman.Beautifully photographed, "My Brilliant Career" is nevertheless no big, sweeping epic, and the focus stays on Sybylla, her challenges, and her determination to be, in every sense, ahead of her time.

There is not a crease or seam in Judy Davis's performance in My Brilliant Career. She being one of the greatest of all actresses, or even actors, at the innate endowment of physically, mentally and emotionally residing in a character builds a rivetingly ambitious and combustible character that takes charge of herself and simply does not make a good follower at all and is whirled from early in her life by her independent attributes to have a career in the arts despite society doing all they can to tame her. Her character is so enrooted and actualized that the love story that serves as the flesh of the film between her and the dark and magnetic character of Sam Neill is like a diverging extension of her nature. She only idles away with what she feels could so easily be hers and is driven to single- minded desire of it when it comes to be a challenge. The romantic element of the film, especially in its outcome, fits as a large-scale model of who she is and why she is born to be anything but what her cavalier and domineering family of early twentieth century Australia strives to mold her into.The support of the story, which is Davis's struggle to be independent of society's taming and manipulation is what is ultimately compelling and infuriating, very effectively putting us in her mad, aggressive shoes. The framework involving the attraction between her and Neill is what is ultimately moving and hearty. That is what this film supplies a solvency of, a fiery emotional experience.

I first saw "My Brilliant Career" in the early eighties while I full of teen angst. At the time I related so closely to Sybylla not only in her unfortunate looks, but desire to break away from my hometown, and be creative. I recently re-watched the movie with my teenage son, and had a totally different experience.First of all, the cinematography is stunning. The movie captures the immense beauty of Australia. Judy Davis at times is dreadful to look at, and then classically beautiful. I notice how similar Judy Davis's acting is to Nicole Kidman's, and I wonder if Kidman considers Davis to be a role model.But the plot rang hollow with me, this time round. It did not sit well with me. Sybylla found a good man who truly loved her, and waited for her, and he was good looking and wealthy. She seemed to love him. It hung on me, why could Sybylla not have her brilliant career and the man? Sybylla was a tease. She wanted the attention, but was disgusted when she got it.I was further confused when I realized the director Gillian Armstrong also directed "Little Women" (another one of my favorite movies). Jo/Louisa May had a brilliant career, and was married, some fifty years earlier, and yet Sybylla/Miles felt she could not have the career and the marriage. My 14 year old son said…"the answer is easy mom, she was a lesbian"! LOL I nearly fell out of my chair. At that point I HAD to look up to see if Miles Franklin was indeed a lesbian, and I think it is agreed upon that she did have a lesbian affair. It seemed to me to that the career was the excuse she used to not marry.If you like romantic period pieces you will like this movie. I am glad I saw it as an idealist young girl.