Kidman is Lady Sarah Ashley, whose rancher husband of her unhappy marriage has been mysteriously killed. She has traveled from London to the Darwin area to sort things out. Instead of bending to pressure to sell the cattle ranch in the wake of her husband’s mysterious death, she shows her grit and wants to run the place. She fires the leading hand, Neil Fletcher (David Wenham), who has been stealing and is conniving with King Carney (Bryan Brown), the big wheel cattle man in the area. But whom can she get instead? Yep. It’s Jackman to the rescue as the experienced rover Drover. The challenge: drive 1500 of cattle on a long, arduous journey, with Fletcher playing dirty tricks to thwart Lady Ashley and her new hired man.

Meanwhile, Lady Ashley is looking after a young orphaned boy, Nullah, played engagingly by Brandon Walters. He is partly Aboriginal and is in danger of being scooped up under the law of the time dictating that half-breeds could be seized and sent to be educated at missions or elsewhere. Lady Ashley, who has been unable to have children of her own, gradually becomes attached to the boy, and ultimately she’ll have to fight to hold onto him.

Others in the cattle-driving entourage include Jack Thompson as the tippling Kipling, and the Aboriginal Magarri (David Ngoombujarra). David Gulpilil, who has appeared in such important Australian films as “Walkabout,” “Crocodile Dundee” and “Rabbit Proof Fence,” plays a mystery figure called King George, who is reputed to have magical powers in line with Aboriginal lore.

Lady Ashley turns out to be quite the cattle herder, and as for her and Jackman as Drover, you can set your own timetable as to how long it will take them to fall in love and into the sack. As if all this were not enough for an epic, eventually the Japanese bomb Darwin and the rain of bombs results in tearing everyone away from one another until the screenwriters can get them back together in triumph.