Show script:
Well I decided I would take one for the team and I would go to the official documentary of Jacinda Ardern entitled “Prime Minister – Elected to serve. Inspired to lead.”
So armed with my choc top ice cream, and some zero sugar fizzy drink to keep my blood sugars at an appropriate level, I ventured into the cinema packed with eight other people to watch the one hour 41 minute movie.
Now please know I’m not a movie reviewer, so treat this review with suspicion.
But it’s my commitment to you to go into the hard places and do the hard jobs.
You’re welcome.
So here’s the promo for the movie
It was also shown at the Sundance film festival where one of the reviews said
“Prime Minister’s portrait of Jacinda Ardern is so persuasive it might make you wish you could vote for her.”
And another Review said
“an aspirational guide for future leaders.”
The movie is described as:
“…chronicling Jacinda Arden‘s tenure as New Zealand PM, navigating crises including while redefining global leadership through her empathetic yet resolute approach. Right honourable Dame Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s 40th prime minister, lead her nation through unprecedented challenges, implemented bold policies, and became the second leader in history to give birth in office, all while championing an inclusive and empathetic leadership style that changed global expectations of what a leader can be.”
That all sounds pretty impressive, doesn’t it?
I almost had to check that I was actually at the movie for Jacinda Ardern and not another Prime Minister.
I also noticed that CNN was one of the Production companies – which immediately put me on alert for fake news and material.
According to a review on the left-wing site Radio NZ, it said….
The co-director of the documentary about Dame Jacinda Ardern’s tenure at the helm of the country has defended it from criticism about the lack of depth into policy decision making.
The documentary, which is hitting the big screens nationwide from 25 September, is a compilation drawn from 300 hours of footage, including partner Clarke Gayford’s home videos, audio snippets from the Political Diaries Oral History project and interviews with filmmakers Lindsay Utz and Michelle Walshe.
The Sundance Award-winning film explores how the then-world’s youngest female head of government balanced motherhood with leadership after infertility struggles, navigated national crises like the Covid lockdowns and Christchurch terror attack and dealt with hate.
While Prime Minister has received a high score of 94 percent on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, some critics were less than impressed with the lack of insight into Dame Jacinda’s decision-making and sole focus on empathy and kindness.
However, co-director Walshe says her purpose for the documentary had always been to take advantage of the unique access they had to intimate footage and showcase what Ardern’s leadership was about.
“This film was never a political story to me…”
Really? Would you have made the documentary if she wasn’t a political leader?
So let me just give you my general observations having sat through the movie.
And I have to confess, I actually really really enjoyed it.
I am a political animal who has been observing politics for 25 years, and so the movie could have been about any recent political leader – Helen Clark, John Key, Bill English – and I would have enjoyed it because of all the footage that I am familiar with. (Maybe not Chris Hipkins tho. Fortunately it was less than a year)
But of course this is not a third person telling the story. This is a movie featuring one person and filmed by her partner.
So if you go into the movie expecting that narrative, bias and focus, then it doesn’t surprise you what is emphasised and what is not.
The inside look at the workings of politics was what I especially enjoyed – even through the lens of a left wing leader.
It starts obviously in 2017 when she surprisingly became the leader because Andrew Little was polling so poorly. She talks about the fact that she was a reluctant Leader, although I don’t think anyone goes into politics not wanting to get to the very highest level – so I’m not sure how much of that reluctance was actually there. Perhaps it just came about quicker than she originally expected.
I was also interested to know that she entered Parliament when she was 28, so you can see there wasn’t a lot of life experience that she brought into Parliament – not as young as Chloe Swarbrick and Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke. And we know how disastrous they have been!
Interestingly Jacinda said that she had had all these shadow portfolios while in opposition, and had lots of experience and policy and politics.
The question that someone would’ve asked her in a real documentary is – what did she actually achieve in those portfolios shadow portfolios.
The answer is – not a lot.
But this is Jacinda’s story – so we don’t get those tough questions asked.
So she became the leader of the Labour party seven weeks before the election; and she said “no one thought it was plausible we could win“.
She was right. She didn’t.
But then the worst part of the movie was watching the trauma of Winston Peters deciding not to go with the party with the most votes lead by Bill English, but to go with Labour and Jacinda Arden. That was probably the biggest lowlight of the movie. A terrible memory.
So the first main section of the movie deals with her rise to leader of the Labour party and then her sudden promotion to Prime Minister. And her statement to focus on things like climate change, child poverty, mental health etc.
Once again, the question was never asked- What did she do? And what did she achieve in these areas as Prime Minister?
But of course the main focus of the documentary was on her unexpected pregnancy. (Although that’s what can happen when you live with your boyfriend!)
Of course we were shown the scene of when she comes outside the house to a flock of adoring media to announce that she is pregnant, and some rat bag in the media asks her if she is going to get married? Clark is left with the interesting answer that they’re doing everything backwards – they bought a house, they’re having a child, then they’ll get married.
Always an interesting comment that they actually knew what should’ve been the right order – even if they didn’t do it.
So a lot of the first part of the movie was about the difficulty of being both a mother and a full-time worker. Yes it is tough. But fortunately she had a trad-husband Clark as support. Thank goodness for those tradwives and tradhusbands eh
I especially liked the focus on her pregnancy and that unborn fetus – oops – child. There was also some interesting footage of her performing her duties while pregnant, including meeting the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
One thing I did notice in the movie is that while the footage of Jacinda was predominantly from a positive viewpoint, the footage of others wasn’t.
For example, there was negativity towards Judith Collins, the then-leader of the National Party who had to ring Jacinda to concede the election in 2020, and the insinuation that Judith was short and almost rude on the phone when conceding. But if you listen closely to the phone call it appears that Jacinda wasn’t actually full of chat herself.
Simon Bridges was also painted in a negative light when he was challenging the economic ramifications of the excessive lockdowns.
Newstalk ZB veteran political report Barry Soper is also scowled upon for daring to suggest that she may not be ready to become Prime Minister yet. How dare he.
And of course there was a strong anti-Trump aspect with his speech at the UN in 2018 when he was ridiculed (including by media commentators) — although I don’t think they would be doing that today, would they.
We move to the three major events in Jacinda‘s first term.
The mosque shooting.
Whakaari / White Island (although that got only a very very short mention.)
And then of course COVID.
There is obviously and rightly a focus on the mosque shooting and her response which many voters approved of.
But there does seems to be the underlying implication that no other prime minister or political leader has had to go through a similar situation like this.
But John Key had gone through the tragedy of Pike River (in fact the upcoming documentary on Pike River – featuring a cameo appearance from Jacinda but interestingly not John Key – was one of the promotional movies featured before the movie started).
And John Key also had to deal with the massive Christchurch earthquakes which flattened parts of the area.
Yet he was expected as Prime Minister to simply navigate through both of those major disasters.
Chris Hipkins was PM during Cyclone Gabrielle.
And what about George W Bush president during 911?
Once again this is just the expectation of political leaders when these disasters happen.
The other lowlight of the movie was a very short section but almost tribute to the Abortion bill which Jacinda had champion and pushed through Parliament.
Apart from the gun buyback after the mosque shooting – did that actually achieve anything? – the only other major policy ‘win’ shown was liberalising abortion laws.
Ironically, they conclude that section of the doco immediately following the passing of the abortion bill with a scene showing baby Neve playing in the PM’s office immediately after the bill was passed which decriminalised the right to kill the unborn child.
The imaging was quite appalling.
And then of course we get to COVID.
And let me say from the outset that I think the initial response by the government to COVID was appropriate in the circumstances. We didn’t know what we were dealing with. We didn’t know the populations at risk and we certainly didn’t know about the effectiveness & safety of vaccines, and transmissibility.
So there was credit to the government and Jacinda‘s leadership for that period of time.
And of course that led to the outright win – a majority win in the 2020 election.
So 2020 finishes on a high. A massive win.
But interestingly Jacinda admits “crises make governments and they break governments“
She was probably indicating that the crisis had put the government in a good light, but what was interesting was that it was the government’s response for the next two years that led to her resigning – which is kind of ironic.
And it then shows that in the documentary. 2021 – it all starts to crumble.
There’s an admission she’s on sleeping pills.
A lot of the scenes are of her not looking well, not coping, but often it comes across that Jacinda is the victim in all of this.
This is the narrative that the documentary presents.
She admits that she had two key jobs -save lives, and keep everyone together. She argues in the documentary that she did the first but not the second.
However she says she did a lot on progressive issues – lifted people out of poverty, climate change,- but given that it was her own documentary filmed by her partner and sponsored by CNN, we never actually got to see any evidence of the claims that were made in the movie.
And of course we all know that they were just that. Claims.
There was little evidence that Labour’s period of power resulted in ANY policy improvements in New Zealand.
Of course the Parliamentary COVID mandates protest was painted in extremely negative light. Although, interestingly, when they showed the protests first arriving at Parliament, there were lots of Maori and Rangatiratanga flags and I actually thought it was a treaty protest, but of course it was the mandates protest arriving at Parliament ready to camp on Parliament lawns.
The blame was put on QAnon, Trump, far right, American imported culture war, yet we all know that that protest was a far wider and more eclectic range of people than made out in the documentary.
One interesting aspect was that they showed the group of protestors outside Clark’s parents’ house. They didn’t show the location but it was near a lovely looking beach. But it is an example of protesters turning up to someone’s house, their private home, and in this case, the in-laws of the prime minister. And that was unacceptable – just as we argued with protesters outside Winston Peters house last week.
We finally get to the resignation.
And she argues that she’s resigning to “bring the temperature down”.
There’s only a brief acknowledgement that the polls were tanking, her popularity and party was losing significant support, and that she was looking defeat in the eyes if she had stayed on as Leader.
But once again, that aspect of failure and policy and that losing popularity were never really canvassed in the documentary – and as any independent observer would say, why would it be canvassed if it’s her documentary?
The other aspect that I noticed is that there’s lots of personal footage where she’s speaking to the camera which is held by her partner Clark.
It has to be kept in context that when the camera is rolling, and you know the camera’s rolling, you’re always slightly different than what you really truly naturally are.
The one other positive of the movie was the lovely footage of the wedding. It looked like a great celebration. Perhaps marriage is becoming cool again, even for those on the left.
The movie finishes with fawning positive coverage of Jacinda on the world stage.
And there’s an implication that while she’s in Massachusetts and working at Harvard, there’s no place like home. New Zealand. But does she feel like she can’t come back to New Zealand?
Well that’s never been an issue for ex-political leaders of New Zealand or other countries – even from the COVID period. Boris Johnson is still in the UK. Scott Morrison is still in Australia. Prime Ministers John Key Bill English and Helen Clark are still in New Zealand. In fact, Helen Clark just can’t keep quiet.
So this implication that Jacinda can’t return to New Zealand is, in my view, just part of the narrative that she is the victim in all of this, and if only New Zealand could understand like the rest of the world just how perfect her political leadership was.
In the conclusion this clip from her valedictory was shown
Just like me resulted in this
So there we go.
If you loved Jacinda‘s role as Prime Minister and voted for her, you’ll love the movie.
If you love politics – especially New Zealand politics – you’ll love the movie.
But as the critics rightly say, and as I would say, there was no footage of the challenging or controversial parts of her style or substance of leadership.
Some of these events.
The mishmash definition of hate speech – according to whether she could see it or not
The buying of the media
How she handled challenges to her policies
Even the real reason she resigned. History was rewritten
You can see why many people celebrated when she resigned. It was a good day.
Including for these reasons….
So beware – if you’re in political leadership and your spouse or family member is a photographer or filmmaker, you could end up with a documentary based on you.
The good news is that my wife doesn’t have a camera, and even if she did, she wouldn’t know how to use it. Thankfully.
So you won’t be seeing a documentary on Bob McCoskrie any time soon.
You’re welcome.
Oh – by the way – and just by coincidence, I watched another political drama the night before I went to the Jacinda one.
It was “Reagan”. Filled with conservatism, & bible verses.
A young Ronald Reagan reads Scripture in the First Christian Church in his boyhood hometown of Dixon, Illinois, and gets baptized in a river.
Years before Reagan’s election to the White House, the movie depicts Ronald and Nancy meeting at their California home with a group that includes the Rev. George Otis and pop singer Pat Boone, a conservative Christian and a prophecy that one day he would be in the White House.
The reciting of Scripture with a political opponent after the attempted assassination on his life in 1981.
And speaking at a meeting of the National Association of Evangelicals.
Quite the contrast.
Interestingly I don’t think there was any mention of even Jacinda’s Mormon upbringing in her movie.
But Reagan was quite the contrast. Highly recommended.
Oh – one other request. If and when the documentary on Chloe comes out – funded by the taxpayer I think – please please please could Simon O’Connor be the person who takes one for the team.
Thanks Simon.
For the sake of my blood pressure. And sanity.
