Prime Minister: Movie Review 

Directors: Michelle Walshe, Lindsay Utz

Early on in directors Michelle Walshe and Lindsay Utz's doco Prime Minister, New Zealand's former leader Jacinda Ardern is delivering a lecture about how the world has become divided, how there's only right and wrong and how we need to re-humanise each other.

In many ways this becomes the mantra for the excellent documentary which charts the tempestuous times she endured while in charge.

From heading back to her ascent to the top job in 2017 to her fall from some public grace during Covid-19 and her eventual resignation and move to the US in 2024, what emerges is how the compassion in politics was gradually dulled and destroyed by sexism, misogyny and outright abuse.

While the film does whitewash over some of the more failed political ambitions of her party's time in power, what Prime Minister does is allow unfettered access to jacinda herself, largely via husband Clarke Gayford's intimate recordings. 

What emerges is a person racked by self-doubt, overwhelmed by uncertainty of what the definitive right course is and who tearfully still can't fathom how the family of a slain man can find the humility to thank her.

It's tremendously affecting in parts, a film that looks superb and which pieces together how exactly the schism in New Zealand's fabric became so wide.

Yet it won't convince her detractors in the slightest and there is an argument that there's no counterpoint provided to some moments - but that feels largely redundant given how this is a portrait of a leader in power who dealt with crisis after crisis and had to take the bigger picture approach.

 There's much debate to be had about the politics of the time, but what Prime minister is superb at doing is giving a peek behind the scenes, a look behind the curtain at the annals of power and a view of the human caught up the centre of it all.

Is its scope of time frame too wide? Possibly, though a seven year time frame is too much to condense down into 90 minutes. 

Would the directors have been better to focus on one period? Probably not, because what Prime Minister is most effective at is reminding us of the hope and humanity a leader can have - even if the depressing conclusion is that said leader now lives in relative anonymity on the streets of the US.

While there's a heavy-handed reliance on a parallel between her and Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated trip to the frozen waters of the Antarctic, most of what is committed to screen is concise, compelling and a clarion call for compassion.

 It's a timely piece, excellently and effortlessly helped and thamks to a strong first half should be required viewing for anyone who has an interest in politics and people.