8 stars

dir: Rungano Nyoni

2025

Because I am a creature of habit, and of several dark habits, I feel compelled to point out that this is not the sequel to Kirsten Dunst’s one season series On Becoming a God in Central Florida, and that it has nothing to do with mid-level marketing schemes or cult leaders, either. Yet similarly, no-one turns into a Floridian God nor does anyone physically turn into a guinea fowl.

So both titles suffer ultimately from false advertising. In this instance, however, there is more of an explanation as to why one would aspire to become as such.

A young woman driving home at night, happy, after a dress-up party (where I think she’d gone as Missy Elliot?), sees a body on the other side of the road. She is driving somewhere on the outskirts of the capital of Zambia, being Lukasa. She is not distressed by the sight of the body, and she happens to know the body’s name.

She is neither happy nor sad that she has found her uncle Fred here. Maybe she even feels relieved. Out of nowhere a drunk appears and starts calling her by name through the car windows, but she ignores the woman, who recognised her, since they’re cousins, and also recognises the body, since he was uncle to them both. Nsansa (Elizabeth Chisela) likes to party, though, so death hasn’t seemed to bum her out, as she twerks to a song playing from her portable speaker, mere metres from the body.

There is no urgency; the cops tell them to not worry, it will be all be sorted in the morning; the initial woman, Shula (Susan Chardy) calls her dad, and he doesn’t seem to care, but hits her up for some money for a taxi ride to the site that he never takes. The call to her mother, the sister of the dead uncle, has a different effect, though.

dir: Miki Magasiva

2024

This is one of the biggest flicks in Aotearoa’s box office history, and yet did anyone else outside of those holy isles hear about it?

I’m not going to pretend (too much) that I know that much about films from NZ in a scholarly sense, but I can make broad statements based on snippets I’ve seen online and the kinds of flicks I see available on streaming services and SBS online: there is a confidence, and there is money enough, that sustains a tv and film industry that is very different compared to so-called Australia, despite our proximity to each other. There are entire Kiwi films in te reo Maori (Maori language) set during the Treaty Wars, different uprisings, and I’m not even talking about movies starring Temuera Morrison or that other famous Kiwi actor Guy Pearce.

And I’m not even talking about that one-man industry Taika Waititi, who’s now all Hollywood and such.

There are Kiwi flicks where the main characters aren’t even white / Pākehā (*gasp*). But it’s also vibrant enough as an industry that there’s no uniformity to it, stories cover all sorts of topics from the mythical to the historical (as well as the legacy of colonisation and disenfranchisement of indigenous people from their lands and culture etc etc), and there’s room enough for a flick like Tinā.

It’s not the main character’s name, it’s a Samoan term meaning ‘mother’, though no-one uses it in the context of calling their actual mums ‘mum’. The main character, who is a Samoan New Zealander, played by a Samoan New Zealander, rejects the term when people use it.

It’s based on a true story, and it’s all been wedged into a fairly familiar format which I very much doubt proceeded in the ways this flick does, but then I rarely believe anything is verbatim in movies, since they’re movies. And it seems, on the surface, and in the trailer, like a fun, uplifting, crowd-pleasing film.

It’s anything but. Honestly, it’s a pretty grim story, and the fact that it’s based on a true story makes it seem even more depressing.

Yet, all that being said, I’m a sucker for sad stories.

dir: Celine Song

2025

Anyone who saw and liked Past Lives fairly recently wouldn’t be surprised that this flick is a subtle one, seemingly about how great it is to be rich and never worry about whether you’re going to be able to make rent or eat food for the next fortnight, but more about the modern minefield that is dating. Also, anyone that was hoping for something as sublime or exquisite as Past Lives is going to be sorely disappointed.

Materialists is a different film, a different song that plays out in a different register. Being alone, being single makes us anxious. Finding someone to be in a relationship with makes us anxious. Actually being with them and thinking about a future together makes us anxious. Having it all fall apart makes us anxious, because we’re not sure if we can go through all of that again, but we can’t be on our own, because then the world thinks we’re worthless. We are not valued, therefore we don’t value ourselves. We need others to make us feel valuable. Or at least feel slightly less shit about ourselves.

So how do we find someone to be compatible with? I don’t mean a hook-up – I have no personal knowledge of the world of either online dating or online hook-ups: They’re both from way before my time on the dating battlefield / in the dating-mining trenches. But I’ve read enough about them or see enough about them as a phenomena in countless movies and tv shows, and through conversations with friends to have some idea.

Imagine not a dating service, but a matchmaking service, which seeks to pair prospective daters, with people who will be the right ‘fit’ for them. People apparently don’t know where to go, or how to approach people in non-threatening or non-cringe ways, so having someone go through your family history, education and net worth, put your data into a spreadsheet, and then compare it with someone else of the opposite or same identifying gender in order to calculate compatibility, well, that would be a godsend, surely? It would take the guesswork out of it, the messiness, the fear, surely?

Would it fuck…

dir: James Griffiths

2025

The only reason I watched this flick, the only way in which I heard about it, is because it was recommended by Marina Hyde and Richard Osman on their podcast The Rest is Entertainment, one of the few podcasts I still listen to.

If you’re wondering why, and you’re probably not, but I have to imagine that you briefly rolled your eyes and then wondered, “why, fuckface?” in order for the bit to work, well, not only am I a very busy man with a lot on my plate, but I cut out / deleted any of the podcasts I used to listen to that have anything to do with politics.

Who can listen to that bullshit anymore? Every single one of them talking about the latest antics or spoutings of shite from the same appalling people invariably about the same shitty person. I can’t do it anymore. People, we’re all going to die. Some of us sooner than others, but, fuck, we can’t keep talking and thinking about the same appalling person all of the fucking time! That’s no way to spend however much time we have left.

Anyway, Marina and Richard, two people who I like and enjoy listening to, saw it and recommended it, and so like the sheep that I am I saw the flick too, knowing nothing else about it.

And I’m glad I did because I enjoyed the heck out of it. I am not entirely sure what kind of flick it is, in that you could just as easily call it a gentle drama as you could a light comedy, but both pigeonholes sell the flick a bit short.

Similarly, saying the flick is about loneliness, longing, re-connection or grief would additionally short sell what is really an airy and wry confection, despite most of the flick being set on a Welsh island.

Back in the early 2000s, there was a British folk band (in the world of this movie, not in ‘our’ world) called McGwyer Mortimer, a two-piece, and they achieved a modest amount of success, before seemingly breaking up acrimoniously. The two members were Herb McGwyer (Tom Basden) and Nell Mortimer (the great Carey Mulligan). I’m not sure they’re based on any particular band in British history, but there are no shortage of bands where performers got romantically involved and things fell apart.

A decade later, Mortimer doesn’t perform anywhere, and McGwyer has transitioned to pop bullshit writing commercial hits and having his songs presumably used in commercials. The well has run dry. Inspiration left a long time ago, possibly around the time (Nell) Mortimer left.

Money. Everyone needs money, that’s why it’s called money. Herb is lured to a gig on the aforementioned island, being deposited not on the shore but in the waist deep waters, in anticipation of one well-paid performance. He doesn’t know the person proposing the gig, and he doesn’t know that the person setting things up has lured Nell to the island as well.