The Justice of Bunny King: Neon NZ Review

The wonderfully-helmed The Justice of Bunny King is a film that handles its humanity with great aplomb.

Essie Davis is Bunny King,  a single mother who's desperate to see her two children, who are currently in the care of the state. Separated from them, and with no permanent home to call her own, Bunny makes a living washing windows at car intersections, staying at her sister's place on a couch and trying desperately to get some kind of stability ahead of a state visit.

However, as is the wont of social dramas, things take a turn for the worse when self-proclaimed "homeless squeegee bandit…but sexy" Bunny witnesses something in her sister's home that forces her and her niece Tonyah (Thomasin McKenzie, in a relatively muted part) on the run...

If The Justice of Bunny King is anything, it is Davis' film.

From the very first frame, Bunny is the heart and soul of this movie, and Davis owns every second, giving her the sense of hope and gritty authenticity you'd expect from a film like this. One that has echoes of Ken Loach and sets out to damn the housing crisis of New Zealand, as well as the Family services throughout - the film knows deep down what it wants to do and does it well, in a movie that's blessed with beautiful and bountiful cinematography.

But it's here the conflict of the film begins - in every single decision (more or less) that Bunny King makes, she's inherently in the wrong, providing an ideological conflict that's hard to shake at times. And this is not the crusade of an anti-hero by any means, more a flawed human being floundering in the face of levels of just being human.

Perhaps, it's also the fact the film humanises everyone - bar one person - throughout, meaning there is no inherent bad guy or girl - there's a system that is failing all those within it.

Whereas Ken Loach tends to build the tension and stir the pot, Gaysorn Thavat's film hinges on a narrative construction in its final third that feels tonally deaf, and leaves the viewer with extreme whiplash. 

And it's here that perhaps the film faces its greatest hurdle - whether an audience will go along with it, or whether this undermining of the drama and its subsequent credibility issues will alienate those who were already on a knife's edge watching someone flawed continue to make bad life choices that push her to the edge.

What rises above in The Justice of Bunny King is also a sense of family and whanau, the bonds created and the bonds tested by behaviours. It's here that Thavat's film truly soars, rendering some scenes with real poignancy and depth.

Ultimately, with a damning of the New Zealand housing system clearly targeted, and a lead whose presence transcends some of the weaker material and moments, The Justice of Bunny King shows promise for its first time director - and continues to cement Davis as an actor to keep watch on - even if its final act feels too fantastical and too out there to cling to.