[3] The act of "travelling north" as used in the title, in the context of the southern hemisphere in which the film and its original play are set, denotes transitioning from the colder, business-dominated southern regions of the Australian continent to the notionally more relaxed and warmer subtropical or tropical northern regions such as northern New South Wales (in the play) and ultimately, far north Queensland.
Frank, a newly retired, sometimes bad-tempered civil engineer and his partner Frances, a good-natured divorcee some 15 years his junior, decide to live together for the first time and relocate upon his retirement from cold, busy Melbourne (home of Frances' two married daughters) to a modest but apparently paradise-like beachside home in a small town in the tropics of far north Queensland.
The film follows their journey through Frank's declining health, his immoderate outbursts tempered with occasional acts of kindness and self-realization, his initial neglect of Frances' own needs, the contrast between their past big city and new small town surroundings, and their sometimes fraught, sometimes comic interactions with Freddy, their ex-serviceman neighbour and Saul, the long suffering local doctor, who eventually become their friends and providers of emotional support, to its foreshadowed, moderately peaceful, ending for Frank and cusp of another new beginning in beautiful surroundings for Frances.
[1] Much of the superb atmosphere of the film was created by the choice of music - the heart-rending slow movement from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's String Quintet No.
In the play, the couple set up home not in tropical Queensland but in the sub-tropics at Tweed Heads in northern New South Wales, local characters such as Freddy and Saul also reside there, and it is made clear that upon Frank's death, Frances intends to continue her journey of self-realization by "travelling north" further.
In both cases, Frank in his posthumously-opened letter suggests that Frances would be better off returning to her family in Melbourne than staying around and getting entangled with further old persons ("old crocks", a veiled reference to Freddy and/or Saul) locally.
In the film, the last that the viewer sees of Frances is in the garden of the far north Queensland home that she and Frank have created together, smiling, as if to convey the impression that she may already have found her desired destination.
[7]On the other hand, Hal Hinson, in The Washington Post, wrote: What remains of the film is taken up with a catalogue of Frank's heart problems, his arguments with his doctor (Henri Szeps), and his self-centered despotism toward Frances, who suffers through all with her mouth puckered up like a disapproving schoolmarm.
... How much you like "Travelling North" may depend on how you respond to crusty old codgers who waddle around in their shorts with their ample guts hanging over their waistbands, bellowing out their general disdain for life and the living to all within earshot.
[8]Robert Horton, on "What a Feeling", wrote: Now the exemplary British character actor, Leo McKern, has found a crowning role in a new Australian film.
Under the direction of Carl Schultz (Careful, He Might Hear You), McKern blusters and soars in the meaty role, which allows him to spew a string of well-chosen words of venom in one scene and delicately wave his conducting baton to a radio broadcast of Mozart in another.
You can't deny the sense of years lived when, anticipating his death, he insists that his companion break out a bottle of champagne upon his passing: "For all my faults, I’m damn well worth a magnum!
At the AFI Awards the film won the categories Best Actor in a Lead Role (Leo McKern) and Best Adapted Screenplay (David Williamson).