Line #21 Film/MyBrilliantCareer


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/7d8d5769_83ea_4fe4_bfbe_14bd878580ad.jpeg]]
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3	''My Brilliant Career'' is a 1979 film directed by Creator/GillianArmstrong.
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5	Sybylla Melvyn (Creator/JudyDavis) is a headstrong young woman growing up in Australia near the end of the 19th century. She has dreams of being a great writer, dreams that do not impress her parents, cattle ranchers in the Australian outback. Her parents, flailing for something to do with a daughter that has no romantic prospects and clearly loathes ranching, send her off to live with her wealthy grandmother. She has various suitors, the best of the bunch being young Harry Beecham (Creator/SamNeill). Harry loves her and eventually asks her to marry him, and Sybylla develops feelings for Harry as well. However, she remains torn between her love for Harry and her desire to be a writer, and the conflict between being a career woman and getting married.
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7	Based on a 1901 semi-autobiographical novel by [[note]]Stella [[/note]]Miles Franklin.
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9	----
10	!!Tropes:
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12	* AbhorrentAdmirer: Frank Hawdon, the "jackaroo"--basically an Australian apprentice sheep rancher--who takes a shine to Sybylla. In one scene he gives her a bouquet of flowers. She accepts, then after he walks away, chucks the flowers into a lake.
13	* CareerVersusMan: The central dilemma, as Sybylla has to balance her feelings for Harry with her desire to be a career woman. Marriage and having a career are two things that don't go together well in Australia at the end of the Victorian era. A relatively unusual example of this trope in that the film ends with the woman choosing ''only'' a career (and in RealLife Miles Franklin never married).
14	* ChildishPillowFight: Despite the fact that they aren't children, Sybylla and Harry manage to have one of these, running through the mansion and around the grounds, whacking each other with pillows.
15	* DancesAndBalls: Harry throws a ball on his estate. When Harry tries to make Sybylla jealous by dancing with another girl at the fancy society ball, Sybylla makes him jealous by leaving and dancing at the working-class ball nearby.
16	* EstablishingCharacterMoment: The first scene has Sybylla composing a book called ''My Brilliant Career'', chewing thoughtfully on her pen, and writing sentences like "I have always known I belonged to the world of art." This, while she's sitting in a ranch house in the Australian outback as a sand storm is kicking up and the rest of her family is struggling to get the cattle to shelter. Both her ambitions and her misfit status within the family are established.
17	* HeadbuttOfLove: Ironically, given at the end between Sybylla and Frank as she reveals that she doesn't love him and will devote herself to her career.
18	* LandPoor: Although it's not quite established why he's so poor, Harry reveals to Sybylla that he's going to have to close up his estate because the bank is going to foreclose. He calls himself "a poor man".
19	* MeetCute: Harry walks up on Sybylla while she's sitting in a tree. She has to frantically pat down her skirt to prevent him from seeing her bloomers.
20	* MistakenForServant: When Harry first meets Sybylla he takes her for a servant on the estate. She doesn't bother to contradict him, which makes for an amusingly uncomfortable second meeting at Sybylla's grandmother's dinner party.
21	* OldFashionedRowboatDate: Harry and Sybylla are having one of these when Harry loses his balance (because Sybylla purposefully rocks it), overturning the boat and throwing them both into the lake.
22	* SmallTownBoredom: Sybylla chafes at life on a lonely cattle ranch in the Outback.
23	* SwingLowSweetHarriet: Sybylla is swinging on a tree swing while Harry and his mother, looking on from a distance, discuss her suitability as a life partner.
24	* TitleDrop: ''My Brilliant Career'' is the title of Sybylla's own book that she's writing.
25	--> "I make no apology for being egotistical, because I am."

Context Film / MyBrilliantCareer