Tinā: Movie Review

Cast: Anapela Polataivao, Beulah Koale, Antonia Robinson, Nicole Whippy
Director: Miki Magasiva

There's nothing in Tinā that's new.

In many ways, it's a very familiar story told within a very familiar framework, with an outcome that won't surprise really anyone who is worth their cinematic worth.

But where Tinā does surprise is in its powerful performance from its lead Polataivao, who elevates the well-trodden story high above its roots thanks to her subtle and crowd-pleasing performance.

She plays Mareta, a school teacher, whose life is irrevocably changed when she loses her daughter in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Robbed of her will to live and her desire to even exist properly, she's stumbling through a shadow of a life in one of the city's poorer suburbs. But when her electricity is threatened with disconnection, she's forced to take a teaching job at an upper-class school across the city. 

Coming into conflict with an overly ambitious deputy headmaster keen to make his mark, and trying to start a choir in a mainly sports-led school, it's obvious Mareta is not going to have the easiest of rides. The script doesn't exactly pull any original punches here - and when one of the girls from the school, Sophie (played with restraint by Robinson) is seen pulling away from her mother in anger, it's no surprise where that relationship will go and how it will play out.

But Magasiva manages to keep things on the right side of crowd-pleasing throughout (even if some hamminess from an almost pantomime-villain threatens to derail proceedings) and the city of Christchurch has never looked so beautiful and grounded in the camerawork (credit to cinematographer Andrew McGeorge) - meaning Tinā falls just on the right side of the cinematic ledger throughout.

It could have lost a little in the edit, but sequences such as the choir finding each other and their voice add new visuals to a genre that's become soaked by the likes of Pitch Perfect and Mr Holland's Opus. 

There's a heart here which is hard to deny - and as Tinā, Polataivao is the beating heart of the proceedings. There's an aching sadness to her performance and just something that she manages to capitalise on perfectly. The film's name is Samoan for Mother and franjly Polataivao delivers the mother of all performances here to keep both her cheekiness, her resolve and her tragedy all bubbling away.