A Mistake: Movie Review

Cast: Elizabeth Banks, Simon McBurney, Mickey Sumner, Joel Tobeck, Richard Crouchley, Rena Owen
Director: Christina Jeffs

Sunshine Cleaning's director Christine Jeffs' sombre tale A Mistake boasts some truly outstanding performances, chiefly Banks and McBurney that make for compelling viewing in an otherwise ordinary drama.

Banks stars as Elizabeth Taylor, a doctor who pushes her team during a surgery that goes wrong. Ordering her trainee registrar Richard (Crouchley) to "Give it some welly" when inserting an instrument sets off a catastrophic chain of events that nobody really seems in control of, but everyone wants to take charge of as the story plays out.

But little is surprising in this tautly pulled-together drama that wants to equate personal accountability with public transparency over hospital patients' treatments. Adapted from Carl Shuker's book of the same name, Banks reminds us once again that she's capable of great drama performances with this slightly-clipped British doctor who appears to be reciting a mantra that everything will be all right to those around her, as everything in her own personal orbit falls apart.

She gives the kind of performance you can't take your eyes off - and her sparring with Rev's McBurney is truly impressive, even if the script gifts him an almost-stereotyped male bureaucrat who once had ideals but now is espousing what's best for the system, rather than those caught in and around it. McBurney makes great fist of minor character moments, before the script compels him to deliver some clunkers.

Perhaps more interesting is Jeffs' B-roll and scene progressions - from the murk of the waters that Taylor transgresses every day on her ferry ride to work to the gradually descending mist of the vistas of Auckland, the cinematography lays bare the mindset of the piece where the more basic storytelling fails to deliver.

Ultimately worth watching for Banks' gradually crumbling demeanour, A Mistake isn't quite the superlative drama it promises to be - but nor is it a complete mistake to watch either. 

This film is playing as part of the 2024 Whanau Marama New Zealand International Film Festival. For more details, visit nziff.co.nz