Big screen

It was a dark and stormy night. Okay, it was more like a dark and stormy afternoon - the type where the humidity builds to breaking point. Clouds the colour of a beaten-up old highway condensed in the skies above Sydney before they seemed to heave a sigh, releasing the raindrops that brought relief at last from the day’s relentless steaminess. 

The storm turned out to be fleeting, which was just as well as this was the night I was heading to St George Open Air Cinema at Mrs Macquarie’s Point, tucked within Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden, for a preview screening of Matthew McConaughey’s new film, Gold. 

Audi is a Major Partner of the perennially popular summer outdoor cinema, which for 2017 is running over 44 nights until February 22. Half the nights are dedicated to previews and premieres, which is why Audi decided to choose this spectacular harbourside location to premiere something rather special of its own. Located just inside the entrance gate is the country’s only model of an Audi A5 Coupe – fittingly in a colour called Monsoon Grey. Patrons can slide into the driver’s seat to admire – from an up-close angle - the interior styling or run their hand over the body’s sculptural, chiselled lines. This successor to a design icon is available in Australia from March. 

Audi’s VIP guests can enjoy the hospitality tent at the far end that offers an uninterrupted view of the Sydney Opera House, Harbour Bridge and city skyline reflected in the harbour. We climb up to the tent’s deck and find a spot on one of the comfy couches: my companion nurses an ice-cold Kirin while I opt for a flute of Croser Vintage. Other patrons are sipping Petaluma shiraz and pinot gris as waiters twirl among us, offering tiny toasts crowned with steak tartare, lettuce leaf cups piled with spicy raw tuna, vegetarian rice-paper rolls and samosas, grilled prawns and risotto. 

It’s tempting to enjoy the hospitality tent all night long. Branches of bright-pink bougainvillea envelop the tent poles. Tables cradle vases of pastel roses and rhododendrons.  As if all that wasn’t enough, an ice-cream stand is offering strawberry sorbet and white-chocolate ice-cream. Among the crowd the celebrated neurosurgeon, Dr Charlie Teo, is taking calls in between chatting to other patrons.  

But as light drains from the sky and the odd flying fox flaps overhead, it’s time to take our seats in the reserved area where chairs come with the added benefit of comfy cushions. The three-storey-high hydraulic screen, located out over the water, has been raised into position to face the 2000-seat grandstand. 

We settle in to watch Gold unfold. In a story loosely based on the real-life stock market mystery of Canada’s Bre-X Minerals, McConaughey plays Kenny Wells, a prospector who strikes gold in Indonesia in the 1990s and is worth – at least for a fleeting moment –billions before things go spectacularly wrong. To play the bumbling entrepreneur whose mantra is “If you sell your dream, what do you have left?”, McConaughey piled on 20kg, wore a bald cap to thin his hair and added unappealing dentures. Despite the pot belly, McConaughey still has a (fleeting) nude scene in the film. 

In interviews, McConaughey has said that his own entrepreneurial father, who worked in the oil industry as a salesman, inspired his characterisation of Wells. McConaughey’s family was rolling in money – until the oil bust of the 1980s came along. His father came near to bankruptcy but kept up the façade of success, never letting McConaughey know how bad things had become. In Hollywood, McConaughey has also experienced extreme career highs and lows – but in the rollicking tale of Gold, it seems he’s struck it lucky.