"It's bad enough being born a girl, but being born ugly and clever..."
The words Sybylla Melvyn uses to describe herself in Gillian Anderson's 1979 film My Brilliant Career sums up the difficulties Sybylla faces trying to find her place in late 19th century Australia. Sybylla is plain, but brilliant. She loves art, literature, music and elegance, and is determined to have a CAREER. The word itself induces shocking gasps from her grandmother, aunt and mother, and while they search for a suitable husband, Sybylla pays no mind to their exploits and refuses to lose sight of her goals.
Sybylla seems to fit in to this man's world. She can drink with them, drive carriages, stand her ground in an argument and sing songs about drunken maidens, but she is hardly accepted because she does not fit the archetype for young women of the period. She is surprised to learn her behavior is unacceptable and wonders why she is not allowed to be herself. She is advised by the grandmother of her would-be husband that independence is selfish and is told by her own grandmother that marriage will finally give her respectability.
By employing a sort of shared perspective, Anderson makes this film accessible to modern day audiences. The camera is used to tell the story from Sybylla's perspective by never showing a scene where Sybylla is not present and using numerous point of view shots. In addition, Sybylla's dialogue assimilates more modern perspectives of a woman's life. Like Sybylla, many women from the 1970s through today would wonder why a woman has to pretend to be someone else to attract a husband, why she needs someone to look after her, why she can not have an independent life or focus on a career.
When I first viewed My Brilliant Career a few years ago I wished I had seen the film as a very young girl. To me she is one of the greatest young heroines in cinema, a young woman who focuses on herself during a time when women were brought up to focus on finding a husband and serving them until the day they die. Sybylla's future is unexplained at the end of the film but there is satisfaction in knowing she never gives in to the pressures her family puts on her. She chooses the possibility of a career over a marriage to a rich and handsome young man. As an independent woman she is already successful for being able to do what she dreams of. But as a woman of the era it is difficult to tell how much success she will be able to obtain, or how much happiness she will be allowed to enjoy.
