All the Rivers Run 2 (1990) (TV)

User Rating:

5.2/10   

Director:

John Power

Writers:

Barbara Bishop (part two)
Nancy Cato (book)

Genre:

Drama

Plot Keywords:

Australia | Colonialism | Frontier | Riverboat | Sequel

Cast

John Waters	...	Brenton Edwards
Nikki Coghill	...	Philadelphia 'Delie' Edwards
Parker Stevenson	...	Cyrus
John Jacobs	...	Sid
John Alansu	...	Ah Lee
Mike Bishop	...	Grainger
Jon Concannon	...	Bates
Michele Fawdon	...	Ruth
Charles 'Bud' Tingwell	...	Charles
Gil Tucker	...	Hopkins
Shane McNamara	...	Riley
Margaret Peerman	...	Miss Prentice
Sudi de Winter	...	Gordon (as Sudi De Winter)
Eric McKibbin	...	Brenny
Peta Toppano	...	Eunice

Runtime:

100 min (2 episodes)

Country:

Australia

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Iceland:L

Filming Locations:

Australia

Company:

7 Network

Movie Connections:

Follows "All the Rivers Run" (1983)

Not a bad sequel, different from the book

The first series was quite true to the Nancy Cato book, but here the writers have gone their own sweet way, concentrating on a fairly youthful Delie and Brenton. The trouble is too much of the story is away from the river, and concentrates to a large extent on Brenton. It's very episodic - we don't see the children noticeably age. Although we loosely cover the children's stay at Mrs Melville, we lose the detail about Meg staying on because she's infatuated with their older son - well, Meg here is only a little girl rather than the teenager she ought to have become.

All in all it's a good yarn, although the ending seems hurried and (without giving away the plot) unreasonable. I'd recommend reading the book in which Delie is a real three dimensional character, rather than a fairly cardboard figure. If you can find it, it's still worth giving this sequel a viewing - the acting and camera-work is brilliant, and the producers have done a fine job in creating turn-of-the-century Echuca.