The Last Anniversary: Director John Polson on keeping Liane Moriarty TV adaptation an Australian story

For a country with a population one-12th of the US, Australia has certainly over-indexed in globally recognised talent.

Sure, there are the Cate Blanchetts, Nicole Kidmans and Kylie Minogues of our roster but there’s also Liane Moriarty, the popular novelist whose books have been turned into high profile adaptations including Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers and Apples Never Fall.

There’s now a fourth Moriarty series out this week, The Last Anniversary, a six-episode series starring Teresa Palmer as Sophie, a young woman who unexpectedly inherits a house on the fictional Scribbly Gum Island.

The house belonged to Connie, one of two sisters at the heart of an old mystery, that of a baby abandoned by her parents decades ago. Connie’s multi-generational family are as surprised as Sophie about the inheritance and some of them are not happy about it.

When Kidman produced and starred in Big Little Lies, the narrative was moved from Sydney’s Northern Beaches to a privileged seaside community in northern California, while Apples Never Fall and the first season of Nine Perfect Strangers were filmed in Australia but still set in America.

The Last Anniversary breaks with that tradition. Scribbly Gum Island, while made-up, is situated the Hawkesbury River, north-west of Sydney, and Moriarty really wanted this one to not just be filmed here but also set here.

For director John Polson, who helmed all the episodes, the production was an opportunity to come back to his hometown.

Having worked in the US for decades on the likes of Without a Trace, Elementary and Chicago Med, Polson was delighted at being able to reunite with people in the local industry that he had previously worked with both behind the scenes and as an actor. That included producers Bruna Papandrea and Kidman, both of whom he’s known since they were all teenagers.

The timing was also the perfect storm. Moriarty’s desire that The Last Anniversary be an Australian production, as well as Polson’s availability lined up with the 2023 US actors and writers strikes which shut down the industry stateside.

“I felt a sense of privilege to be shooting (Moriarty’s) first book in her home city,” Polson told The Nightly. “A lot of pressure too, some days, but in that way, it’s been pretty special.”

The Last Anniversary was commissioned locally by Binge, one of the last projects Foxtel executive Brian Walsh worked on before his death. But it will also travel elsewhere, including AMC+ in the US.

With the international successes of Bluey, Heartbreak High, Deadloch and Colin From Accounts, there’s been a real appetite for authentic Australian stories and the specificity of our culture.

With the exception of Miranda Richardson, it’s a local cast which in addition to Palmer also included Danielle Macdonald, Helen Thomson, Claude Scott-Mitchell, Susan Prior, Uli Latukefu and Jeremy Lindsay Taylor.

“I’ve developed a lot of stuff now and when I read the script, I thought this is the perfect balance of, this is a very Australian show based on an Australian book with very Australian characters.

“What I can bring to it, if I can say this and still be humble, is my experience of having made some pretty big TV shows in America, and make an Australian show but also a global show at the same time.”

Polson said that when the first trailer was released on social media, he noticed that many of the comments came from would-be fans all over the world.

“Living in New York, I find Australians have always had a special place. Australian culture has enough weight that people want to watch and see what’s going on.”

But The Last Anniversary is not just some cultural curiosity.

“The world is getting smaller, and where this show comes from is secondary,” Polson added. “It’s a universal story. It’s intergenerational, it has trauma and it has light-hearted levity. Yeah, there’s the accent, but I hope people recognise the characters more than anything.”

If nothing else, Polson knows that he loved it.

“This is the first time in a pretty long career, where I decided, ‘You know what? I’m going to make a show that I want to see’,” he said. “I’ve said this before but you do get pressured, there’s this audience out there, and you want to make it for them.

“But I’m a big fan of (music producer) Rick Rubin, and that’s a big thing for him, is just make your own thing and then people either love it or not, but at least you’ve made something you love.”

The Last Anniversary is on Binge from March 27