Furiosa’s Mythmaking Roars

George Miller and company’s Mad Max movies run on a variety of tensions. That’s both textual—the conflicts between Max and his foes, Max and his allies, Max and himself—and metatextual—the series runs on spectacular physical stunts and pays close attention to the physical consequences of its action for its players while simultaneously operating as a mythical space where legend is as real as whatever reality has become in the Wasteland. That’s been the case since FiFi Macaffee (Roger Ward) declared to Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) that the Main Force Patrol would give people back their heroes as Australia began its fall into becoming the Wasteland in 1979’s Mad Max. From this tension arises impeccably staged set pieces, striking character work, and narrative flexibility.

Each Mad Max has its own texture and feeling—the first film’s grimy, despairing revenger, 2’s large-scale duel for survival and self-definition, Beyond Thunderdome’s grand adventure, Fury Road’s full-on epic race for redemption—while unmistakably being of a piece with each other. This holds true for the new, excellent Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. As much as the subtitle might be marketing speak, “saga” is a good word for Furiosa. It’s the title character (Anya Taylor-Joy as an adult and Alyla Browne as a child)’s decades-long quest to come into her own and fight towards the home she was stolen from, both a coming-of-age and a coming-of-creed. It’s a hot-cold-hot war between Furiosa, who forges herself in the crucible that is the Wasteland, and the Warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), who gorges himself on the oblivion that is the Wasteland. It’s as much a cousin to The Northman (speaking of Taylor-Joy and the mythic) as it is Mad Max 2.

If Fury Road is a bullet train, Furiosa is a roller coaster. The climb is just as important to the thrills as the drop. One of its core pleasures is learning how the world shaped Furiosa into the warrior who will ultimately fight the whole world to win a better tomorrow for the Five Wives. To make that click, Furiosa ensures that its audience understands the world. Miller and co-writer Nick Lathouris take the time to explore the stages and societies through which their players stride. The Green Place, where Furiosa was born and from which she was abducted, runs on care and relentless, ruthless pragmatism—both of which Mary Jabassa (Charlee Fraser, whose action scenes stand out amidst strong competition) passes on to her daughter. Dementus’ roving horde is fearsome and terrifying and an empty mess. It’s held together by the promise of spoils and its leader’s force of will and sadism and reflects an inner hollowness that, for all his bluster, he knows in his bones. Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme, taking over for the late Hugh Keays-Byrne)’s Citadel and its attendant fortresses—Gastown and the Bullet Farm—have built a system whose comparative functionality lets its leaders lie to themselves that their cruelty and predation are necessary to survive/thrive in a world that’s long gone wild.

These are the spaces Furiosa moves through and grows in. Browne’s Furiosa is introduced as cunning, caring and bold, even while terrified. From Dementus’ twisted would-be mentorship, she learns what people are capable of when pushed to be their worst selves. She builds armor around her heart both so that she might survive and so that she can learn. In the Citadel’s vault, halls, and machine shop, Browne learns the ways that the cruel and the powerful let things slip the more they tighten their grips before passing the baton to Taylor-Joy’s Furiosa. On the Fury Road, where War Boys try to win glory in death and stylish raiders try to plunder for vengeance and booty, she learns the art of action, of channeling her mission and her rage to take the day.

In fighting, Furiosa finds a peer—the shockingly noble Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke). Where Furiosa’s north star is breaking clear of the Wasteland’s bastards and getting home, Jack’s is the possibility that he might be able to do something genuinely good in a time when good seems confined to the History Man’s fading tattoos. Those stars, it turns out, chart well together. Care builds care builds hope, a reason to reach out, to stand alongside rather than stand alone. In other words? One more irreconcilable difference between Furiosa and Dementus.

Browne, Taylor-Joy and Hemsworth build what may be the Mad Max series’ greatest rivalry. For Browne and Hemsworth, it’s well-earned hatred vs. a knowing, cruel, twisted attempt at paternal care. Dementus murdered Furiosa’s mother. She, for all her hatred, reminds him of his own lost loved ones. He wants to look out for her—so long as she’s under his thumb. For Taylor-Joy and Hemsworth, her hatred is matched matched with his hatred—hers the wounds of her stolen childhood, his for the fact that she stands in his way and has the audacity to care for someone else and accept someone else’s care. Until, that is, a climactic moment of recognition that makes their relationship significantly more complicated.

It’s also a question of ideology. Furiosa may not keep any hope for herself, but she does believe that there’s still space for something to grow. Dementus is not only hopeless, but he also refuses to accept that anyone else could be anything other than hopeless. Between their history and their codes, Furiosa and Dementus are genuine no-nonsense archenemies. Taylor-Joy and Hemsworth make a feast out of their enmity—their climactic duel is one for the ages.

With that rivalry, its players, its world and its action—tighter and more intimate than in Fury Road but possessed of the same dimensionality and breakneck speed—Furiosa carries the Mad Max series’ fire forward. It’s a hell of a film, and it’s a hell of a film in what’s been a hell of a great year for movies.

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