ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

Female Film Critics 24/375

new zealand

Movie of the Week 

MOVIE OF THE WEEK June 13, 2025: PRIME MINISTER

Jennifer Merin , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Anyone who still thinks that women are too emotionally unstable to be effective leaders needs to do two things, stat: Take a look at the messy, high-drama bromance break-up currently dominating the news cycle and sit down to watch Prime Minister, Lindsay Utz and Michelle Walshe’s intimate, insightful documentary about former New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern. If that combo doesn’t leave you desperate to have a kind, competent woman in charge, nothing will.

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Reviews 

PRIME MINISTER – Review by Loren King

Loren King , , , , , , ,

Prime Minister is eye opening, engaging and also depressing. To hear former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern routinely use words like kindness, compassion and empathy when advocating for policy or talking about leadership left me disheartened that in the currently deeply divided, disinformation-inundated United States, such a leader could never be elected. Prime Minister is more than a powerful portrait of a singular leader. It’s also a devastating look at politics in the world today.

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Reviews 

PRIME MINISTER – Review by Leslie Combemale

Leslie Combemale , , , , , , , ,

Is watching a leader that is the diametrically opposite of Donald Trump going to bring you despair, or optimism, or both? That’s the question that will likely pop up for viewers of the documentary Prime Minister, from co-directors Lindsay Utz and Michelle Walshe. The film chronicles former New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern’s professional and personal experiences in her five years as head of government, years that included the birth of her first child, a mass shooting, and a worldwide pandemic, and proved enormously challenging.

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Reviews 

WE WERE DANGEROUS – Review by Loren King

Loren King , , , ,

From its opening frame, Māori filmmaker Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu’s alternately enraging and celebratory “We Were Dangerous” announces an assured screen debut. Set in 1950s New Zealand, the film has echoes of Rabbit-Proof Fence and The Magdalene Sisters in its story of abuse and exploration and colonialism but has its own voice and fresh approach. The story is about a Christian School for Incorrigible and Delinquent Girls where an abusive matron (Rima Te Wiata) drills the Bible into the mostly Māori girls sent or abandoned to the facility.

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Festivals Reviews 

PRIME MINISTER (Sundance FF 2025) – Review by Cortland Jacoby

Cortland Jacoby , , , , , ,

Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is probably the most well-known PM New Zealand has ever had. A new documentary by first-time directors Lindsay Utz and Michelle Walshe chronicles her time as the country’s leader and what exactly about her tenure made her so remarkable. As an American, watching Prime Minister is an experience unto itself. Knowing the reverence our country and the rest of the world have for Ardern and seeing the dissonance and hatred towards her in her own country is jarring. On one hand, much of it is systemic sexism and some of it is valid criticism that is never given a thorough examination. Every time Ardern triumphs you wonder if the United States will ever see a woman in a similar position. But more importantly, you wonder if they will ever get a chance to fail and make dire mistakes, just like the men in power do.

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Festivals Reviews 

THE MOUNTAIN (TIFF 2024) – Review by Valerie Kalfrin

Valerie Kalfrin , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Mountain, Rachel House’s feature directing debut, has the spirit of backyard adventures writ large. Following three tweens on a quest to climb a New Zealand mountain shrouded in clouds, beauty, and reverence, the film is a touching ode to friendship and seemingly random yet meaningful moments. o International Film Festival (TIFF), the film opens with eleven-year-old Sam (Elizabeth Atkinson) doing pushups and karate-style moves before pictures and posters of Mount Taranaki, also known as Taranaki Maunga. “I’m pretty much a warrior woman,” she announces, revealing a bald head under her knit hat.

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Reviews 

THE LIE: THE MURDER OF GRACE MILLANE – Review by T.J. Callahan

T. J. Callahan , , , , , , ,

21 year old British backpacker Grace Millane was murdered while traveling alone in Auckland, New Zealand in December of 2018. The only suspect in the case, her date Jesse Shane Kempson, used the “rough sex” defense when arrested. This documentary, from director Helena Coan, not only chillingly recounts the details leading to the death of the young and vibrant Grace, but also is meant to hold a mirror up to a society with a problem of violence towards women.

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Festivals Reviews 

WE WERE DANGEROUS (SXSW2024) – Review by Valerie Kalfrin

Valerie Kalfrin , , , , , , , , ,

We Were Dangerous, the feature directing debut from Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu, takes place in a New Zealand reform school for girls in the 1950s, reclaimed from a former leper colony. “If it can contain leprosy, it can probably manage a few girls in heat,” says a bureaucrat assigning a matron to the task. Designed for “incorrigible and delinquent girls,” the school takes in runaways, pregnant teens, and others labeled as sexual deviants, such as Lou, whose doctor father sends her there once he catches her making out with her female math tutor.

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Reviews 

I AM MOTHER – Review by Susan Granger

Susan Granger , , , , , , , ,

Sci-fi movies about AI and robotics can be terrifying or tortuous – I Am Mother falls into the latter category. Set in a massive, automated, underground laboratory, the story begins with an angular, one-eyed android – embodied by Luke Hawker (who supervised its manufacture at New Zealand’s Weta Workshop) and softly voiced by Rose Byrne. Calling itself Mother, it chooses one test-tube embryo out of thousands in cryogenic stasis to begin the job of repopulating humanity after a horrific global extinction event.

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