PRIME MINISTER

THREE AND A HALF STARS A fly-on-the-wall documentary about Jacinda Ardern's five years in New Zealand's highest office.

DOCUMENTARY NEW ZEALAND English #PRIMEMINISTER Starring Jacinda Ardern

What makes PRIME MINISTER so compelling isn’t its access, though there’s plenty of that, but its perspective. And kindness. That gets mentioned a lot. Directors Lindsay Ute and Michelle Walshe have crafted a documentary that’s as unprecedented as Jacinda Ardern’s own political journey, offering an eye-opening insider's account of leadership under pressure. This is politics at its most human: conviction tested in real time, feminism lived rather than declared, empathy used as strategy.

Then, it was over. 

The film unfolds like a personal diary with the speed of a news cycle, fitting for a woman who was given the poisoned chalice of leading a party that was sinking in the polls two months out from an election. What was un-winable was - surprise! - won, then - surprise! - Ms Ardern will become the second world leader to give birth while in office, then - surprise! - a volcano explodes, there's a terror attack in Christchurch and then the biggest surprise of all - COVID.

If you knew what was coming…

In tone and focus, PRIME MINISTER feels comfortingly out of step with its era, and that’s very much the point. In a time when cynicism often passes for realism, this is a celebration of the politics of care without entirely ducking the contradictions such ideals invite. Notable is the absence of pundits or talking heads - the frame is tightly fixed on Ardern throughout, enhancing the intimacy but occasionally narrowing the scope. This is, after all, a portrait, a diary, of one woman’s experience more than it is a dissection of her policies or legacy.

The documentary deftly toggles between the public and the private: Ardern the Prime Minister alongside Ardern the partner and mother, juggling domestic moments with the demands of global scrutiny. It’s a stirring glimpse of what top-down kindness looks like when it’s wielded as a form of leadership rather than weakness.

And yet.

Domestically, a lot of mud has been slung by a small but very vocal group unhappy with government mandates around vaccination, and those who sought (seek) to exploit their views. Monickers such as Jabcinda, one of the more polite, abound. The view has been amplified by her life in the US since leaving office, a choice which dissenters frame as her having ‘ruined the country then run away’. It would be fascinating to examine these views and how their unkindness has marred both Adhern’s legacy, and the country itself.

But that’s not this documentary. 

Without input from others, the proximity to Adhern sails close to the overly sympathetic. Yet as a study of what it means to serve others while trying to hold a family, and a nation, together, it finds the right tone. This is less a political documentary than a moral one that reminds viewers how conviction and kindness can coexist in public life. It restores faith, however briefly, in the idea of leadership itself.

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