Lee Tamahori completism. The middle entry in a trilogy bookended by Once Were Warriors (1994) and The Convert (2023). John Collee (The Return (2024)) wrote the screenplay based on a novel by Witi Ihimaera.
Temuera Morrison plays a Māori patriarch who arrived in the district of Gisborne / Poverty Bay (northeastern corner of the North Island of New Zealand) a while back, did what it took to establish and enforce his particular notions of muscular, landed patriarchy and now, ballpark 1960, has to contend with a grandson (Akuhata Keefe) who refuses to quieten his modern, liberal ideas. Each generation gets its Romeo and Juliet, Tamahori being such a romantic, but it is only this third one that can provoke a reckoning with the founders and Pākehā notions of justice.
The arc of the story is predictable and clearly Tamahori is more interested in conveying details, for instance by contrasting this bloke with Morrison's timeless portrayal of Jake the Muss and showing the increasing utility of abstract thought and ideals married with conviction (and muscle but perhaps not violence). The boy is already brave and tough but has a lot to learn; a variety of scenes demonstrate how he benefits from interactivity rather than the trial-by-failure methods of his grandfather which do nothing but rile him up. (There are some great collaborative shearing scenes shot well by Ginny Loane.)
The women seem generally happy, leaving aside grandmother Nancy Brunning who has her own particular grievances with the patriarch. Apart from her none are drawn in much depth.
Māori culture isn't explained much here. There is a fair bit of breath-sharing, some of it surprisingly aggressive. A haka (?) at a funeral seems at best insensitive. A destitute family hacked into the bush with such abandon that I wondered how much connection they felt to the land; perhaps it was a case of one dispossessed clan despoiling the property of another now long gone.
Thinly reviewed. David Stratton at The Australian: "essentially a variation on classic western themes", owes "a considerable debt to Elia Kazan’s 1954 film of John Steinbeck's East of Eden". "In this context it was amusing to note from the end credits that one of the film's producers is named James Dean." Two funerals and a wedding. Keefe's inexperience let the show down. Wendy Ide found the plot "glaringly unsubtle" but did not use her surplus attention to dig into its other aspects. But she got it broadly right: those CGI bees are terrible.
