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John Curran's adaptation of Robyn Davidson's memoir about treking 1,700 miles from Alice Springs through the Australian desert to the Indian Ocean in 1977 unfortunately takes its pacing cue from the trip, never raising itself above andante for the entire runtime. It is the sixth time someone has attempted to film her story - and the first to be completed - but finishing a film is not the same as succeeding with one.

The idea of a woman crossing wide open spaces with nothing for company but her faithful hound Diggity and a string of camels she has trained up for the journey, sounds like the ultimate feminist adventure or, at the very least, an opportunity to explore the terrain of psychological endurance. Sadly, Marion Nelson's screenplay paints Davidson (Mia Wasikowska) as a thoroughly unlikeable closed book.

Antiheroes are all well and good but beyond hazily glimpsed childhood trauma, the film has very little to say about the subject and gives Wasikowska little to work with beyond being kind to her dog and downright unpleasant to everyone else. Despite this, everyone inexplicably tries to help her. If Davidson lacks depth, the characterisation elsewhere is even more weak, with the portrayal of an Aboriginal elder Eddie (Roly Mintuma) getting mired in the unpalatable mud of stereotype - Davidson's memoir may be old and suffer from being a 'product of its time' but more effort should have been put in to bring the subsidiary characters to life. Only Adam Driver (who has the look and innocent vibe of a young Keanu Reeves) makes any real impression, as the National Geographic photojournalist bent on finding a crack in Davidson's tough exterior. There is a lack of nuance, as Curran often tries to replace depth with heavy handed symbolism, with a moment when a snake slithers across Davidson's neck a prime example. It doesn't matter if danger is everywhere, if we don't care enough about the survival of the protagonist.

The film's saving grace is Mandy Walker's beautiful cinematography, whether she is drinking in the wide-open sweep of the landscape, showing how the terrain changes from aerial shot or simply capturing the ghostly images of camels, sitting sentinel in the crackle and glow of the firelight. The flashback sequences, too, though offering very little meat in narrative terms, have a dreamy and loose fluidity that makes you wish they were attached to a stronger story. As she embarks on her journey, Davidson is unsure of what she hopes to achieve, leaving the cinema, you may also wonder what, beyond an appreciation of the Australian landscape, you have managed to glean from the trip.