Only reason I didn't vote this mini-series I watched on a DVD as a movie at the max rating of 10 is that it doesn't completely follow the true story, which makes fascinating reading online afterward (not before, so you don't spoil the dramatic unfolding) with greater detail of intense interest inspired by this film.The artistic license taken with the inspiring actions of Cornishwoman Mary Braund Bryant & other seminal settlers of New South Wales given a chance to live out of prisons overflowing from British caste system starvation like were shipped to the American colonies is so engaging and gripping that I recommend it for mature audiences though ladies you may not want your husbands watching sexy actress Romola Garai in this earthy steamy depiction of desperate overcoming.We can all relate to the human condition of striving to meet & rise above life's challenges & difficulties, and recordings of such history help us explore in our spirits & souls how we would rise to the occasion in such situations as these with God's help not acknowledged here but ever present in the facts of timely favor and circumstances bringing common folk to uncommon experiences & unlikely fame. Thought provoking not only about "relative ethics" to survive in our cruelly fallen world, but also a bird's eye view of a macrocosm of a microcosm of His-story through different cultures encountering & influencing each other as well as by individual choices between good & evil, lowness & greatness, in our fleeting world, with ramifications for eternity. As theologian William Shedd said later, in the new USA, in the 1800s, "A ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." And as Phoenician/Lebanese Christian chiropractic physician Dr. Michael Shalhoub, cousin of actor Tony Shalhoub, of Southern California says, "Courage is contagious." Each of us faces challenges we can look back on & be glad we tried, even regardless of outcome.

Watching this again after first seeing the mini-series on TV a few years back, I am again left stunned by "Mary Bryant". It has to be one of the best productions to have ever come out of Australia. Based on the true story of a female convict who escaped the harsh penal colony in the 1700's, this is an absorbing, well-acted work.Romola Garai turns in her best performance thus far as Mary Bryant. Garai makes Mary alternately fascinating, infuriating, gutsy, heartless, direct and selfless. The film opens with Mary Bryant, nee Broad, running along the Cornwall coastline (actually Kiama, NSW), with voice-over from Garai. Born of a fishing family, Mary is 17, wild, independent-minded and starving. Convicted of theft, she is transported to Botany Bay. In the opening five minutes, the three protagonists are effortlessly produced. Garai boards the ship, and the camera pans to fellow convict, the laughing, handsome Will Bryant (Alex O'Loughlin), who will become Mary's husband and soul mate. We then cut to Lt Ralph Clarke (Jack Davenport), the man who will be passionately, obsessively in love with her, and will stop at no lengths to have her at his side.Davenport's Clarke is, for me, the most interesting part of this excellent production. He gives a wonderful performance as the strict soldier who will order a ferocious whipping or hanging then tenderly caress Mary's face. The film is cut and shot in a way that actually makes us sympathize, and associate Mary more with Clarke than her husband. Garai and Davenport share a volatile chemistry in these scenes, and the viewer is torn between Mary's determination to have the best for her struggling family and her use of Clarke as merely a sexual tool for her to get the key to the supply room for their daring escape. When they meet again on the beaches of Timor, the confrontation is surely one of the most emotionally moments I have yet seen. And, later, emotion does not get any rawer than Garai's speech in the courtroom back in England.

I sat through Mary Bryant and I was completely bored. It was a totally overblown and long drawn out saga, heavily padded with long, lingering, meaningless close ups and many trivial mistakes. Without those close ups which added nothing, the piece would have been half as long which would have been better. It was also totally unrealistic and laughable to watch.In the very first scene Mary (Romola Garai) robbed a women in an isolated wood in Cornwall and then, from nowhere, up came two men and arrested her. That was just funny. It looked for all the world as if the robbed woman had called the police on her mobile. Where did they come from? How did they get there?Then Mary was sentenced to go to Australia, and the appalling conditions on the boat were depicted in great detail. People were starving and dying of disease, the lucky ones survived. Mary's baby was born on this boat and then arrived at Sydney Cove fit, clean and healthy. Yes, Mary's baby truly did survive this voyage, presumably fed by Mary, but if Mary herself was starving, how was the baby so bouncing? In spite of the desperate hunger and hardship the baby then grew up to be quite a sturdy little girl (Charlotte). At Sydney Cove there was one scene where a character wrote a list of supplies with what looked suspiciously like a ball point pen, it could have been a fountain pen, but it certainly wasn't a quill pen. The quills appeared later.Then Mary Bryant had another baby. This one also thrived and stayed healthy looking throughout the drama never losing any weight during it's long 3,000 mile journey in a boat with few supplies and what did they do for water? In fact none of the actors lost so much as an ounce on that long journey. They did have signs of scurvy at one point but that miraculously disappeared in sight of land. Also realistically their white skins would have been terribly burnt in that open boat. Why was that not shown?The scenes in Timor were just ludicrous. Jack Davenport (as Lt. Ralph Clarke) is always worth watching, but even his endless close-ups began to pall, and Mary Bryant's husband (Alex O'Loughlin) was very handsome in a 2006 way and had cosmetically perfect, shiny, white teeth which helped very much with his close-ups, but added not atouch of realism to the drama.Romola Garai was great in "I captured the Castle", but I did get tired of staring at close ups of her. Her expressions were rather blank as well.As befits British people arriving in Australia the convicts all had British accents, bar one, actor David Field, who had an Australian accent, however he was one of the few convincing looking convicts. I don't expect accents to be uniform, but uniformly British would be desirable.As this was a true story I stayed with it in order to see what happened to Mary.At the end Mary Bryant all dressed up, clean and looking not a minute older, returned to Cornwall. Presumably she had received financial assistance, however she had absolutely no luggage. With nothing in her hand at all, she walked cheerfully down to her village, which we never see (and in which she was originally starving) and then we do not know what happens to her. Not even a little hint in the credits at the end.I think when actors are portraying great suffering they should miss a few meals on location and perhaps a smaller baby could be used to show malnutrition. I also expect more from the make-up department. I do not expect the children to be starved for the role, but perhaps less bonny looking children could be used, and less obviously well fed actors.A lot of money went into this production but God is in the details and the details weren't there.My husband's comment was "Well I'll sleep well tonight!"

I wonder if the makers of this piece of garbage actually bothered to go to the actual site of the first-fleet landing. I say this because the place where they filmed the first settlement scenes bears no real resemblance to the actual place. Sure, I know that you can't film it in the exact spot, since it would be hard to film without getting accidental shots of the Botanical Gardens pavilions, the Opera House and the Bridge, but seriously! Also, any reading of the seminal historical text "The Fatal Shore" by Robert Hughes will tell you that most of the women on the first fleet were raped on the first night ashore, not once buildings and storehouses had been set up. I know it's only a small thing, but when you set out to make an historical film, get the simple bits right and you're halfway to making the rest fall into place. Get lazy with the little things, and the whole deal looks shabby.