Opal Dream

Directed by Peter Cattaneo

Like many mining settlements in the American West, the small Australian mining town of Coober Pedy has produced great stories along with the fortunes it has—or hasn’t—yielded—or not. The Australian indie film Opal Dream, based on Ben Rice’s best-selling novel Pobby and Dingan, is one of those stories—but it’s contemporary, not a period piece, and it’s more about family relationships than about mining.

Set smack dab in the middle of South Australia’s harsh, vast, opal-rich desert environment, the isolated town of Coober Pedy is home to the Williamson family. Kellyanne, the 8-year-old daughter of Rex Williamson (Vince Colosimo), an opal-obsessed miner determined to find that gemstone that will change his family’s fortune, has two imaginary friends—Pobbyy and Dingan. We never know how or why they first appeared to Kellyanne (Sapphire Boyce), but her intimate relationship with them creates emotional havoc in the family: Rex is stressed out and annoyed, his wife’s trying desperately to figure out how to help her daughter get real—and they argue over whether they should continue setting places for Pobby and Dingan at dinner. Kellyanne’s brother (Christian Byers) resents that the imaginary friends get so much of his parents’ attention and (along with the town’s other children) ridicules Kellyanne.

Director Peter Cattaneo, whose previous feature, The Full Monty, also dealt with healing familial relationships, brings this imaginative gem of a story to lustrous life. Opal Dream’s cast of highly polished Australian actors really shines, especially the waif-like Boyce as Kellyanne and Byers as her brother.

The main crisis occurs when her dad, Rex, who’s supposed to baby sit Pobby and Dingan while Kellyanne’s at school, leaves them behind at his mining site—a foreboding hole in the ground. Kellyanne insists he go to find them, even though it’s the middle of the night. Because of the unusual hour, another miner accuses Rex of trespassing—or “ratting”—and has him arrested. The town hates “ratters,” so the family’s shunned. Even worse, Kellyanne falls desperately ill with worry about her missing imaginary friends. It seems she won’t get better until Pobby and Dingan are found, so everyone pitches in. Imaginary friends, it seems, must be believed in before they can be laid to rest.