#SoloStories: “My Brilliant Career”
#SoloStories is our feature in which we explore books, films and TV shows that show single women navigating their lives. This review contains spoilers.
It’s 1900 in the Australian outback. Sybylla Melvyn is a young woman with an imagination that goes wild. She puts her thoughts on paper, but in that time, those words are likely to stay with her. She must help her family get out of debt and find a husband.
That’s the premise of “My Brilliant Career,” the 2026 Netflix miniseries that’s based on the 1901 novel by Miles Franklin. A film version was made in 1979 starring Judy Davis and Sam Neill. It’s a classic for a reason – Sybylla is a great heroine who wants romance but yearns for her independence most of all.
“I want to create not procreate,” she says.
She moves to Caddagat to live with her grandmother and aunt, both widows. Her aunt Helen, whose husband died early in their marriage, recognizes the talent of Sybylla, who always seems to get in some sort of trouble in a tradition-bound world.
“Do you think you’re a good writer?” Helen asks her.
“Yes,” Sybylla says.
“The you must write yourself out of the situation,” Helen says.
Sybylla meets a few gentlemen that seem like good fits for her. Her heart explodes with feelings she’s never had before. But her family obligations remain and she ends up as a governess with an unruly family.
The series features beautiful landscapes, eye-popping costumes and an anachronistic soundtrack that just fits, even if the electric guitar didn’t exist back then.
It’s a timeless story, reminiscent of two other characters. Jo March of the classic “Little Women” also wrote adventure stories and Mary Bennett, the neglected sister from “Pride and Prejudice,” leaves her family to become a governess in “The Other Bennet Sister,” a book that also turned into a 2026 mini-series. Both Jo and Mary saw the value of being unmarried and being free. But those characters ended up getting married.
When the opportunity for marriage comes to Sybylla comes, her spark for romance dwindles. Sybylla stakes a claim on her independence.
“My true love is my mind,” she says. “It is the only thing that has ever been truly mine.”
In the final episode, Sybylla says, “I don’t need to be rescued. … There’s something deep inside of me that makes me unsuitable to be anyone’s wife. And if I denied it air and time and space to flourish, it would destroy both our dreams. I want to be a writer and I need to give it every fiber of my being.”
When Sybylla takes a train to her next adventure, the smile on her face says it all. She found her ticket to freedom.