STACK #256 February 2026

MOVIE FEATURE

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THE TRAVELLERS Despite having distinguished films to his name such as the Oscar-winning Driving Miss Daisy,Tender Mercies, and Mao’s Last Dancer , Bruce Beresford says his latest f ilm, The Travellers , is his most personal to date. GENRE: Family RUN TIME: 1h 37m

Fun fact: Beresford is currently

trying to get a film about the Australian boxer Les Darcy made. During our chat he joked “You should write your article about how they should give Bruce a lot of money to make the film.”

Luke Bracey, Brian Brown, and Susie Porter

“ T he Travellers is probably my most personal film,” Beresford says, chatting to STACK . “It had been in my mind for quite a while... I thought I would like to do a contemporary one in Australia.” Starring Bryan Brown, Luke Bracey, and Susie Porter, the film centres on an elderly widower whose children decide he needs assisted living following the death of his wife. It’s a tender exploration of ageing, independence, and dignity, shaped in part by Beresford’s own experiences. “I picked some of my own father’s foibles and put them in,” he explains. “Although the character that Bryan Brown plays is really not like my father, I did give him some of my father’s eccentricities.”

Some of those details border on the absurd, yet come straight from life. “For example, in

longtime collaborator Bryan Brown, following Money Movers and Breaker Morant .

the film he has a friend who thinks he’s a direct descendant of Jesus. That really happened,” Beresford says. He also recalls his father’s unusual hygiene habits: “Also, having a shower fully dressed, my father did that. ‘It’s practical,’ he would say.” While nostalgia runs through The Travellers , Beresford is quick to note that it remains fiction. “Of course a lot of it’s invented,” he says. “When you’re working on them, they kind of write themselves... the story sort of takes off.” The film reunites Beresford with

Director Bruce Beresford (Left)

Despite their friendship, the casting process hit an unexpected snag. “His agent didn’t like it and he turned it down,” Beresford laughs, before Brown stepped in regardless. “Bryan is a very, very good actor,” Beresford says. “He looks casual, but in fact he works very hard.” At this stage of his career, The Travellers feels less like reflection and more like refinement, a film shaped by experience, but very much alive in the present. Glenn Cochrane

• The Travellers is out Feb 4

MORE BRUCE BERESFORD MOVIES AT JB:

Driving Miss Daisy, Money Movers, King David, Double Jeopardy, Ladies in Black

REGRETTING YOU LOVE, LOSS, AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN GENRE: Romance RUN TIME: 1h 56m From heartbreak to unexpected romance, Regretting You captures the raw, messy emotions of family, love, and loss, anchored by standout performances.

Mckenna Grace and MasonThames

B ased on Colleen Hoover’s bestseller, Regretting You introduces audiences to Morgan Grant (Allison Williams) and her daughter Clara (Mckenna Grace) following a devastating accident which reveals a shocking betrayal, forcing them to confront family secrets, redefine love, and rediscover each other. At the heart of the story is the strained bond between a mother and her teenage daughter, both reeling from the same terrible loss but coping in completely different ways. As different as she is from her character of Morgan, Williams does claim some kinship with her. “I am a mom, so I know what it feels like to have a piece of my soul walking

around the world every day,” confesses the Get Out and M3GAN star. “You are so worried that something is going to get in the way of them being everything they can be,” says the actress who believes the story works on multiple levels. “There’s so much contained within this movie. When I’m talking to another mother, I say it’s about a mom who is watching her daughter go through a moment that completely changed her own life. And when I talk to younger people – for them it’s about a couple that’s clearly meant to be together, and that could actually be referring to either of the romances in the movie,” she says. For Mckenna Grace, the role was different

from anything she had tackled before. “It’s cool to finally be ageing into more grown-up roles,” she says. “Clara is still a kid, but she’s the most mature character I’ve played. I was a little apprehensive about doing a romance, but there’s truly no one I’d feel more comfortable with than Mason Thames. Watching this movie will have audiences thinking about

their own choices and how they can have a domino effect on the lives of people around them.” Gill Pringle

• Regretting You is out Feb 11

IF YOU LIKE THIS, YOU’LL LOVE THESE:

It Ends With Us, After, We Live in Time, The Materialists

28 FEBRUARY 2026

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