Clarke Gayford and Dame Jacinda Ardern with their baby daughter Neve in August 2018. New Zealand Herald Photograph by Mark Mitchell.
By RNZ’s Culture 101 and Sunday Morning
Prime Minister received a standing ovation when it premiered at Sundance earlier this year, but some critics say there are glaring oversights.
The co-director of the documentary about Dame Jacinda Ardern’s tenure at the helm of the country has defended it from criticism about the lack of depth into policy decision making.
The documentary, which is hitting the big screens nationwide from September 25, is a compilation drawn from 300 hours of footage, including husband Clarke Gayford’s home videos, audio snippets from the Political Diaries Oral History project and interviews with filmmakers Lindsay Utz and Michelle Walshe.
The Sundance Award-winning film explores how the then world’s youngest female head of Government balanced motherhood with leadership after infertility struggles, navigated national crises such as the Covid lockdowns and the Christchurch terror attack and dealt with hate.
While Prime Minister has received a high score of 94% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, some critics were less than impressed with the lack of insight into Ardern’s decision-making and sole focus on empathy and kindness.
However, co-director Walshe said her purpose for the documentary had always been to take advantage of the unique access they had to intimate footage and showcase what Ardern’s leadership was about.
“This film was never a political story to me. Politics was the backdrop of a universal story about leadership and a different look into leadership, what leadership looks like with humanity, empathy, kindness at its core,” Walshe told RNZ’s Culture 101.
“I think you have to lean into what makes you feel something. And any time we got deep into politics or policy, you know, it doesn’t move in terms of a story. And again, perhaps people will tell those later at another time, but I had to make decisions, we had to make decisions,” she said.
Although Ardern’s husband Gayford served as producer, Walshe said she and co-director Utz would not have taken on the job if they thought the pair were going to contribute to the decision-making on the output.
“I thought, gosh, how is she going to react to seeing herself without makeup and unflattering angles on her bed, you know, speaking in a way that we never hear leaders and politicians in terms of those intimate conversations.
“[When showing Ardern the Sundance cut], she just said ‘that seems like an accurate reflection of my time’ and ‘what a blimmin’ hard watch’.
“I think her drive to want to humanise, to shine a light on another perspective was so strong that she just parked her own sort of concerns about how she looked or how she came across.”
Self-described “forever plus-one following along”, Gayford said it was one of the most nerve-wracking moments when it premiered at Sundance.
“All of those Kiwi insecurities come out but then to win the audience award there in our category was just incredible.”
He told RNZ’s Sunday Morning they went with an American production company for the “sole purpose of us not getting too caught in the New Zealand weeds”.
“We wanted it to be as broad and easier and non-heavy political watch as possible, because we do want it to go far and wider.”
Walshe said the film needed a broad appeal because she understood Ardern’s impact went beyond New Zealand.
“I think Lindsay brought that really important international perspective. When you’re dealing with literally hundreds of hours of footage, it’s wonderful to sit in the room with somebody who’s come from another viewpoint and say we’re both feeling this, we both feel this is really important.”
Gayford admitted that sometimes he felt like “the worst partner” when he whipped out his camera and asked how Ardern was feeling after a long, stressful day. But another reason was to show their child, Neve Ardern Gayford, later.
“I think we could’ve made an entire documentary of her shutting me down from pulling a camera out ... but I just felt like we should try and capture a little bit of this in case we want to do something with it one day,” he said.
“I never, ever felt comfortable [asking], nor particularly good. I needed to channel a bit of [RNZ host] Jim Mora into some of those questions because I never quite felt I could get what I was after.”
Ardern left the role in 2023, saying she had “nothing left in the tank” and subsequently speaking about the physical and mental toll the job had taken.
Gayford said she’s happy now and New Zealand will be back on the cards soon.
“I find this slightly odd talking about it, given she’s just downstairs. Just having a little bit of extra free time, she got up this morning and made pancakes with Neve and I heard them getting into some hard-case discussion about the quality of the flour and the wrong something or rather – and you know just all those lovely moments that I’m privy to here at home.
“There’s certainly a lot more lighter moments than there used to be.”
Since leaving politics, Ardern has spent time in the United States working for Harvard University and is a trustee of Prince William’s Earthshot Prize. She also joined Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government as a Distinguished Fellow and member of the World Leaders Circle.
Earlier this year, she also released a “deeply personal memoir”, A Different Kind of Power, covering her Mormon upbringing, her rise to power in 2017, a cancer scare and navigating crises. She’s also set to release her first children’s book, Mum’s Busy Work, later this month.
Walshe said it’s a “once-in-a-lifetime” or “once-in-a-generation” film and hoped it will serve as a catalyst for change in people’s lives over time.
“When else will we have a time where we’ve got a world leader absolutely open to showing themselves in such a vulnerable way through one of the most extraordinary times in modern history, in a short period of time, and their partner happens to be a filmmaker, or at least knows how to operate a camera.”
Prime Minister screens nationwide from September 25 and will be available on HBO from September 30.
– RNZ