Playing Beatie Bow

Story

Little Beatie Bow (Mouche Phillips) lives in 1870s Sydney. She secretly possesses magical abilities, which she has inherited from her grandmother, and can hear present-day children calling her name during a game of Beatie Bow. This summons her to watch them play, but somehow she becomes stuck in the present day and can’t find her way back to her own time.

Young Natalie (Phoebe Salter) can see Beatie and wants to help her. No-one else believes that Beatie is there, until Natalie’s neighbour Abigail (Imogen Annesley) adds an old piece of lace to her dress. Suddenly Abigail can see Beatie too. While trying to help the frightened child, Abigail herself is transported 100 years back in time.

Abigail follows Beatie to her home, where she’s accidentally injured by Beatie’s deranged father and kept prisoner by her grandmother (Moya O’Sullivan) and a young woman named Dovey (Nikki Coghill). Both women believe that Abigail has been sent to help them and that she must not leave until she does. Desperate to return home, Abigail escapes from an upstairs bedroom and is kidnapped and held hostage in a brothel.

Before Abigail can be sold, Beatie’s brother Judah Bow (Peter Phelps) and his friends come to her rescue. Believing herself in love with Judah, Abigail struggles to come to terms with her feelings in a complicated situation.

When a fire threatens to destroy all that she has come to treasure, Abigail risks her life to save others. In doing so, she sets herself free in more ways than she could have imagined.

Themes

Coming of age; sexual exploitation of women; loss and grief; magic; time travel; hardship and poverty; family breakdown; unrequited love; colonisation; contemporary society; finding your place in the world

Violence

Playing Beatie Bow has some violence. For example:

People shake others.
People are hit over the head and knocked unconscious.
A main character pushes a man who is making sexual advances.
Someone mentions killing a dog for food.
Abigail has repeated visions of a woman standing on a cliff, looking down at the water. Something seems very wrong. Abigail later learns the woman had been contemplating suicide.
A teacher slaps Beatie Bow on the head.
A man is shown with half a leg. He’s trying to place his stump into a wooden prosthesis.
A man grabs Abigail’s leg as she’s walking. She screams, and another man quickly puts a sack over her head.
Abigail knocks into a man and kicks him in the crotch.
A character grabs Abigail’s head and threatens to boil her.
Abigail’s faced is pressed against a snake cage and held there as snakes repeatedly strike at her.
A man is kicked in the crotch and shoved to the ground.
Another man is slapped with a cane.
A group of men fight. They punch, kick, throw, shove, push, knee and elbow each other.
A character tries to stab and slash others with a sword.
A man is shoved into a cabinet, and the cabinet is pushed to the ground to seal him inside. He kicks his way out of the back of the cabinet to join in the fighting again.
Someone is hit over the head with a pottery vase, and another is hit with a heavy mallet.
Abigail trips some men down the stairs.
A man falls onto a glass case full of snakes. The case smashes beneath him, and the snakes escape. This causes terror around the room, especially when a snake slithers up a man’s pants. He writhes on the ground while a woman screams.
Beatie Bow tells Abigail that she’ll ‘break her head’ if she comes between Judah and Dovey.
A character shouts at invisible Russians, throws a bottle into the fireplace, smashes himself through a shop window and charges down the street with a sword. He chops carrots, cuts through the bagpipes a man is playing, and stabs bags in a wagon.
The man with the sword raises it at Beatie and tells her to prepare to be struck down.
Lamp oil explodes as a fire rages through a business and a home.
Abigail asks a sick child whether he wants to be punched in the head. Then she threatens him with her fist to get him to jump out of a window.

Sexual references

Playing Beatie Bow has some sexual references. For example:

A boy makes advances towards Abigail as they’re skating. He says, ‘I guarantee you’ll like it. I haven’t had any complaints yet’. When Abigail rejects him, he notes her white dress and asks whether it’s significant.
Abigail recounts how her father had an affair with another woman.
A creepy man in the street calls Abigail a ‘pretty thing’ and asks where she’s going.
There are several references to ‘painted ladies’ in a brothel.
A brothel madam tells Abigail that she’s going to make someone ‘very happy’.
A character says to another, ‘I await your pleasure’.
A grandmother tells the tale of how her family came to have magic. As the story goes, a lady was taken by the fairies and disappeared one day. She returned some months later, pregnant with a child who had the gift of seeing the future and healing.
Beatie Bow realises that Abigail is ‘stuck on’ Judah.
Beatie Bow tells Abigail that they ‘should have left her with the painted ladies’.

Alcohol, drugs and other substances

Playing Beatie Bow shows some use of substances. For example:

A man smokes cigarettes in a stressful moment.
People drink cocktails and wine in a family home in a casual, relaxed setting while they discuss the day’s events.
As Natalie’s mother sips her wine, she says, ‘Natalie is driving me to drink’. Abigail drinks what appears to be juice from a wine glass as well.
Beatie Bow’s father says, ‘Not even the bottle is giving me comfort anymore’.

Nudity and sexual activity

Playing Beatie Bow has some nudity and sexual activity. For example:

There are paintings of naked people in a French club. They’re in the background of the shot.
Abigail is shown from behind as she sits on her bed sewing her dress. She’s wearing only her underwear.
Numerous women are partly undressed while they lounge around in a brothel. One sits with her leg up. Most women are showing a lot of cleavage because of the corsets they’re wearing. One woman falls onto a group of men, partially exposing her breasts.
A creepy man in a brothel strokes Abigail’s breast.
Abigail is forced to wear a flimsy white dress. In an attempt to escape from the roof of the brothel, she nearly falls off and her underwear and upper thighs are briefly shown as she tries to get her feet back onto something solid.
While at the beach with Judah, Abigail hitches her skirts up so that one bare leg is exposed all the way up to the thigh. Judah can’t seem to look away.
Abigail and Judah kiss passionately while lying on the sandy beach. He touches her lips with his hands and strokes her upper chest and shoulders. He’s kissing her neck when Beatie Bow sees what’s going on and tries to row away in a boat.
Judah strips off his shirt to go in the water after Beatie.
An advertisement shows a woman wearing a little bikini.
Abigail comes out of the shower naked, although she isn’t clearly shown from the neck down. She gives her mother a hug, and her mother wraps a towel around her.
Abigail and another character kiss on a beach while in their swimwear.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in Playing Beatie Bow: an Emrik bag, Puma shoes and Coca-Cola.

Coarse language

Playing Beatie Bow has some coarse language, insults and name-calling.

Ideas to discuss with your children

Playing Beatie Bow is an Australian fantasy movie made in 1986 and based on the classic story by Ruth Park. The 80s cinematography and simple sets mean that the movie looks its age, but it feels authentic.

Because of its content, Playing Beatie Bow is best suited to children aged at least 10 years and older.

These are the main messages from Playing Beatie Bow:

We all have a purpose and a role to play.
Our futures are tied to the decisions we make and the choices we make in the present moment, but our destiny isn’t completely decided.
Love is worth waiting and fighting for.

Values in Playing Beatie Bow that you could reinforce with your children include determination, courage, helpfulness, compassion, teamwork, forgiveness and goals.

Playing Beatie Bow could also give you the chance to talk with your children about issues and ideas like the following:

Family – there’s family conflict in the movie. You could talk about why it’s important to treat parents and siblings with kindness and respect, to talk and listen to each other, and to value each other as individuals.
Relationships: the movie shows threatening sexual behaviour and the sexual exploitation of girls and women. You could contrast this with the relationship that develops between Abigail and Judah and talk about open, understanding, respectful and safe romantic relationships.
Colonialism and history – you and your children could learn and talk about Australia’s colonial past and how it affects contemporary society.