Tomorrow, When The War Began – both the 2010 film and the John Marsden series it’s based on – is ostensibly an action-adventure story. A group of Australian teens go on a remote camping trip, and upon returning to their fictional town of Wirrawee, they learn the country has been invaded by an unnamed nation. But when I was 13 watching the movie in cinemas for the first time, I was far more transfixed by the adolescent thrill of it all: a child who couldn’t wait to be all grown up, observing the world of teenage debauchery with impatient awe.
I was hooked from the first few minutes by the simple fact that this movie feels like it was made in a lab for Australian teenagers existing in the exact microcosm of 2010. The strong-willed and independent main character Ellie is played by Caitlin Stasey, an instantly recognisable face for any kid tuned into free-to-air TV in the 2000s; Phoebe Tonkin, one of the mermaids in teen drama H2O: Just Add Water, is prim townie Fiona; and Home and Away heart-throb Lincoln Lewis is masculine country boy Kevin. The all-Australian soundtrack is peppered with 2000s classics including Jet, Sarah Blasko and Missy Higgins, whose track Steer has never sounded as good as it does in the opening title sequence.
Beyond the well-known faces, the gang of teens felt true to life, long before diversity became a buzzword. There was Deniz Akdeniz’s mischievous and proud Greek boy Homer, Ashleigh Cummings’ shy church girl Robyn, and Chris Pang’s sweet and introspective first generation Vietnamese and Thai kid Lee. This wasn’t taking place in some faraway land like California or New York; these characters were like the people I actually knew and could place in my ordinary life.
This movie had such an impact on my teenage years that I was astounded to learn recently what a commercial flop it was. Mention the film to anyone of a certain age and you might activate their sleeper cell adoration. Recently, a couple of my friends recalled blasting Fader by The Temper Trap on their first road trips, mirroring an early scene from the film where the characters are off-roading through the bush towards their campsite. Even now when we imagine what war would look like in Australia, we picture somehow making it work off grid in the bush like Ellie and her crew (no matter how city slicker we currently are).
Rewatching the film as an adult, I’m able to identify the film’s true thrill: not the explosions or the hormonal relationships, but rather the surprisingly poignant portrayal of coming of age in a world that looks completely different from the one you were raised to expect. The messy moral conundrums are the emotional core of the story: young people forced to make drastic decisions because of circumstances outside their control. The teenage group doesn’t want to brandish guns and go to war; in the only scene where an adult has more than a sentence of dialogue (a delightfully expositional cameo from Colin Friels), the concept of being a vigilante is actively discouraged: “A couple people tried to be heroes. They paid the price.”
Unlike some American blockbusters, the main characters are motivated to defend Wirrawee less by patriotism than an intense loyalty to their local community. There is a moment where Ellie sneaks through the destroyed and looted town, glancing at a mural displaying the First Fleet’s arrival in 1788. British colonisers are depicted triumphantly in the foreground, but, as if for the first time, Ellie’s eyes drift to the Indigenous Australians illustrated in the back. The implication is clear: invasion is baked into the bones of this country, and the one that breaks out in the film’s opening is nothing new.
Sixteen years after the film’s release, the theme of being unprotected in a harsh world unlike the one that was promised to you is even more resonant for teenagers now. There is such limited media made specifically for Australian adolescents, so please take this as my argument to enshrine Tomorrow, When The War Began’s enduring legacy. It may have missed the Hunger Games-induced teen dystopia craze by two years but that doesn’t mean it can’t have a late-in-life resurgence. It’s time for a sequel!
Tomorrow, When the War Began is available to stream on Stan in Australia and available to rent in Australia, the UK and the US. For more recommendations of what to stream in Australia, here
