It follows Darryl Kerrigan’s fight to save his family home,which is being compulsorily acquired to make way for an airport expansion. Against all odds,Darryl,driven by his conviction that what he owns is not simply a house but a home,takes his fight all the way to the High Court,and wins.
But rewatching the film 25 years after it was first released,The Castle now feels more like a farewell note to the Australian dream. Two decades of rapid house-price inflation has transformed the relationship between Australians and housing so profoundly that making a film likeThe Castle seems almost unthinkable today.
The Castle’s 1997 release came at an interesting juncture in Australia’s political history. It was just after the economic reforms of the Hawke-Keating Labor government of the 1980s and early 1990s. Those reforms included the decision to privatise Melbourne Airport,the proposed expansion of which is the impetus for the events in the film. It was released during the early years of John Howard’s Coalition government that would usher in Australia’s long housing-market boom and with it,a politics of constant house-price inflation.
Darryl Kerrigan,though,is a product of an earlier era,when home ownership was much more achievable than it is now. Darryl and his wife,Sal,bought their place 15 years before the events of the film for a “steal”. Reflecting the social and economic dynamics of post-war Australia,they were able to achieve the Australian dream on Darryl’s single blue-collar income as a tow-truck driver. When he was looking to buy a home for his young family in the early 1980s,home ownership rates among 25-34-year-olds peaked at 61 per cent. According to the most-recent census data,that figure has dropped to 45 per cent.
Darryl’s relationship to housing is completely divorced from contemporary concerns about house prices and mortgage debt. In stark contrast to conversations about the housing market in major capital cities today,he was simply happy his house was “worth almost as much today as when we bought it”.
For Darryl,housing is purely about its value as a place of shelter and security for his family. As he explained to his barrister,Lawrence Hammill,QC:“It’s not a house,it’s a home. It’s got everything. People who love each other,care for each other. It’s got memories,great memories. It’s a place for the family to turn to. Come back to.”