Prime Minister Review
Whether you love her, adore her, or absolutely despise her, there’s no denying that Prime Minister, the behind the scenes film showing the journey of Dame Jacinda Ardern from the day she became New Zealand’s Prime Minister is an intimate and sometimes emotional watch, but as the end credit’s role, you’ll find yourself asking, just what exactly was the point?
The film deals with some of the highlights of Ardern’s premiership, the majority of which is filmed from her then partner’s video camera. From her winning the election, giving birth, to the Christchurch shooting, and to the Pandemic response that, in retrospect, led to her resignation.
If you’re well caught up within the world of politics, or even if you’re not, you’ll know who Jacinda Ardern is, and whilst the events depicted are of increasing common knowledge, you don’t really learn anything new. It is wonderful, though, seeing Ardern as a new mother, and seeing her daughter Neve grow up in a world of politics at such an early age, especially as she walks around the room at her mother’s 40th birthday party, introducing herself to everyone. She’s three, and she’s essentially the focal point of this film, right from the get-go, we’re following Jacinda and partner Clarke enter this journey, not just of parenthood, but of the journey of being the new Prime Minister and the hellish consequences that come with that.
The home videos are a nice touch, and do show Ardern in a new light, especially in the aftermath of the Christchurch shootings, in which she details the struggles of maintaining her emotions for fear of being called ‘sensitive.’ But for those wanting a hard-hitting, behind-the-Kiwi-curtain shock and awe type documentary that this had been hyped up to be, especially with the release of her memoir earlier in the year, it’s not. And that is where its problems lie.
We learn nothing from the 1 hour 40 runtime that hasn’t already been reported before. Okay, she does call out Boris Johnson for his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, but there’s nothing juicy you’d come to expect from a feature film chronologising the entire four-year premiership of one of the world’s most liked leaders.
Even the interviews in the present day serve no real purpose, only to tell us she’s teaching at Harvard. But that’s it, there’s no exploration of that, no real depth to it. Whilst we can agree, and so does she, that Ardern’s time as Prime Minister was rocky, to say the least, it’s the lack of retrospection that again fails the movie. Give us interviews with Ardern, with her partner, with those within her core team. Without it, it feels like a self-serving project of praise and look what I had to endure.
★★★
In UK cinemas now / Dir: Michelle Walshe, Lindsay Utz / MetFilm Distribution / 12A
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