Prime Minister, directed by Michelle Walshe and Lindsay Utz, is in cinemas now.
It can always be a worry when people who have been stars on television make the move to the big screen. Have they left it too late? Will their charisma be found wanting when blown up to cinematic dimensions?
Jacinda Ardern, who became a household name as a regular on such shows as 1pm Daily Update in its long-running early 2020s season, the panel show Question Time, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, has finally made the move into movies. Prime Minister is her debut feature, and although her small-screen stardom hinted at a bigger international future, the film confirms it.
Seriously, the US-NZ production arrives as part of an ongoing Ardern media assault. Our former PM has already released a hotcake memoir (you can read a review here), just published a children’s book about being a working mum and has a cameo playing herself in a forthcoming local feature. Since resigning in 2023 – a moment which Prime Minister captures vividly – she has been out in the leadership/academic world after becoming a celebrity politician for her management of one crisis after another at home.
What it was like to be in that firing line while also becoming a mother in her first year in the top job, and the vivid picture it paints of life behind the scenes is what gives Prime Minister a compelling power and emotional weight. If you need a study that drills down into the policy-making of the two Ardern-led Labour governments, this isn’t it. And there’s almost a slight coyness to her saying anything that would make a click-bait headline years after the fact. She is dismissive of Boris Johnson’s pandemic efforts. She also expresses a desire to punch then-leader of the opposition Simon Bridges amid a debate about post-Covid economic recovery. But that’s about it for unguarded moments regarding other politicians of her time.
If Prime Minister lacks in political detail, it more than makes up for in capturing the moments and capturing the era. It’s helped by a National Library project of audio interviews with politicians for an ongoing archive. With a contemporary Ardern reflecting on what she said in the moment a few years ago, it’s an intriguing device in a movie that’s a marvel of editing. It mixes news footage, contemporary interviews and the footage partner-then-hubby Clarke Gayford filmed along the way.
There are moments in it, such as when Ardern is observing the parliamentary grounds occupation from her ninth-floor office in the Beehive, that are chilling. There are also moments capturing a young family, in which the breadwinner has a particularly demanding job, that make it mandatory viewing for anyone contemplating a life in government.
Talking to the Listener last week, Gayford described the period as a whirlwind. The film is, too. And just how behind-the-scenes this gets is slightly breathtaking. If you’re a reasonable New Zealander, you’ll laugh, you’ll possibly cry, and you’ll remember what a shitstorm this woman somehow sailed us through.
Rating out of five: ★★★★★
