 In her review for Salon.com, Stephanie Zacharek wrote, "The second half of "Australia", Luhrmann's attempt to pull off a wartime weeper, is so aggressively sentimental that it begins to feel more like punishment than pleasure.I left "Australia" feeling drained and weakened, as if I'd suffered a gradual poisoning at the hands of a mad scientist".The film had better box office success in overseas markets and a disappointing gross in the United States — a pattern similar to Luhrmann's three previous films.