Introduction:

In 1939, Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) travels from England to northern Australia to force her (in her opinion) philandering husband to sell his faltering Australian cattle station, Faraway Downs. Her husband sends an independent cattle drover (Hugh Jackman), called simply “Drover”, to Darwin to transport her to Faraway Downs. Lady Sarah’s husband, who has been working hard to sell 1500 head of cattle to the military, is murdered shortly before she arrives. Meanwhile, treacherous FD cattle station manager Neil Fletcher (David Wenham) is trying to gain control of Faraway Downs, so that neighboring Lesley ‘King’ Carney (Bryan Brown) can have a cattle monopoly in the Northern Territory, which will give him negotiating leverage with the Australian army. Fletcher also claims to Lady Sarah that the murderer of her husband is an Aboriginal elder with magical powers, “King George” (David Gulpilil).

The childless Lady Sarah is captivated by the young boy Nullah (Brandon Walters), who was born to an Aboriginal mother and an unknown white father. Nullah tells her that he has seen her cattle being driven onto Carney’s land — in other words, stolen from her. Because of this, Fletcher mistreats Nullah and threatens him and his mother, after which Lady Sarah fires Fletcher and decides to try and run the cattle station herself. When Nullah and his mother hide from the white authorities by entering a water tower, his mother drowns. Lady Sarah comforts Nullah by singing the song “Over the Rainbow” from the film The Wizard of Oz. Nullah tells her that “King George” is his grandfather, and that like “King George” he too is a “magic man”.