Over the Hill

Stars: Olympia Dukakis (Steel Magnolias, The Cemetery Club), Sigrid Thornton (Return to Snowy River, Part II). Olympia Dukakis has the thankless job of breathing life into a thinly drawn character in this road movie for sixtysomethings. Dukakis plays Alma Harris, a 60-year-old Bar Harbor, Maine widow who decides to drop in on her daughter (Sigrid Thornton) in Sydney, Australia. Once there, sparks fly between mother and daughter, and Alma buys a gaudy-looking 1959 Chevy Bel Air and heads for Melbourne. As she "loops the loop" (as Aussies refer to the drive), Alma runs into a host of not-unusual-enough characters in the outback, including a con artist couple, a Winnebagoing dentist, and a lonely gas station operator. Unfortunately, the script is not clever enough to work as a slice-of-life portrait, and the meandering story is neither compelling nor even terribly sensible. Director George Miller (The Man From Snowy River) delivers a very nice-looking film--the scenery is gorgeous--but that's the best that can be said of this very average film. Audience: Older viewers might appreciate this tame comic adventure, but Harry and Tonto it ain't.