Tomorrow, When the War Began

Tomorrow, When the War Began, Australia's highest-grossing movie of 2010, was written and directed by Stuart Beattie. It was adapted from John Marsden’s novel of the same name, the first in his seven-book Tomorrow series for teenagers, published 1993-1999. They tell the story of Ellie Linton and a group of her high-school friends who have to try to save their country from an invading militia after their hometown of Wirrawee has been taken over, their families taken prisoner and their homes destroyed.

Ellie (a winning performance by Caitlin Stasey) and her best friend Corrie (Rachel Hurd-Wood) are kicking their heels during the summer while waiting to go back to their last year at school - Ellie helping her dad on the family farm, Corrie getting her own nature lessons with athletic cutie Kevin (Lincoln Lewis). They decide to go camping in the bush near the remote locality of Wirrawee with their friends Homer (Deniz Akdeniz), the local bad boy (but not by UK standards) from an immigrant Greek family, Lee (Christopher Pang), whose family run the town’s Chinese restaurant, Robyn (Ashleigh Cummings), whose ultra-religious dad lets her go only because she says girls and boys are in separate tents, and Fi (Phoebe Tonkin), daughter of the local beauty queen.

While they’re camping out near a natural waterhole (cue for nice slo-mo shots of buff teens playing football in their bathers) they see military planes flying overhead and on their return to Wirrawee they find it’s a ghost town. Like modern versions of Enid Blyton heroes, they realise that they have to start a guerrilla war against the invaders (Asiatic, but never identified) and work out a plan to destroy the local bridge, through which all the invaders’ supplies are being routed.

Unlike Julian, Dick, Anne and George (don't forget Timmy!), this lot have more than cream buns and lashings of ginger beer to sustain them - Vegemite for a start - and have at their disposal the dirt bikes that all local youngsters use to get around. It helps that, being country folk, they also know their way around a rifle.

What follows is an entertaining adventure, and of course the obligatory romances that form between the boys and girls, and some action-movie tropes are nicely inverted - at the film’s heart is Ellie, a brave, get-on-with-it girl who can drive anything vehicular, while the film’s scaredy cat is Kevin, who runs away and leaves his mates to fend for themselves when they are in danger. In addition, the Christian Robyn, who wants to help the cause but not if it means killing the enemy, is treated sympathetically.

I’ve not read the original book, but Marsden is regularly voted as one of Australia's favourite children’s authors, his works have sold in millions and have been translated into several languages, and are set texts in many Australian schools. I suspect, then, that the occasional clunkiness of the film’s script is down to Beattie. The book is written in the first person and Beattie uses Ellie’s intermittent narration to move the story along, and the mostly strong cast are asked to verbalise thoughts and feelings rather than portray them.

Marsden is particularly praised for having an acute ear for how Australian teenagers speak, but here they say things such as, “We were so innocent then...” But Beattie adds some nice comedy, too; when Kevin finds a venomous snake in his sleeping bag, Homer rushes in to remove it and Ellie tells him to shake it. He shakes his hips - “The bag, Beyoncé!” she retorts.

Tomorrow, When the War Began is an engaging mix of action movie, coming-of-age drama and teen romance. There are lots of whizz-bang pyrotechnics and Beattie (whose credits include Collateral and the first Pirates of the Caribbean) is clearly much happier with the complexity of blowing up bridges than those of the teenage psyche, but it’s a nice take on the genre, and guaranteed to irritate you a whole lot less than theTwilight series if you’re over 13 years of age.

• Tomorrow, When the War Began is on UK release from 8 April
• Find Stuart Beattie on Amazon
• Find John Marsden on Amazon

Watch the trailer for Tomorrow, When the War Began