Prime Minister (12A)
Directed by Lindsay Utz and Michelle Waltz
★★★★

“CRISES make governments and they break governments” states Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s youngest Labour prime minister at 37, and the second leader ever to give birth in office. The three devastating crises she faced while at the helm certainly made her, as she stepped up to the plate and showed what she was made of. 

However the vitriol and sexism she was confronted with for deigning to be a mother while running the country was unprecedented as critics called into question her ability to govern. 

This film, directed by Lindsay Utz and Michelle Waltz, provides an intimate and personal portrait of Ardern and the pressures and struggles she faced in balancing leadership and motherhood.  

You are given a front row seat to her five years in office and what it takes to be a prime minister as she dealt with the Christchurch mosque shootings in which 51 people were killed, the White Island/Whakaari volcano eruption resulting in 22 deaths, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Ardern is shown acting with compassion, her leadership mantra, but also acting swiftly by banning all military style semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles. Plus she introduced tough measures to eradicate Covid to protect New Zealanders’ lives while, as she stated, Boris Johnson went all Churchillian in promoting herd immunity and with no regard to the collateral deaths. 

The documentary, which features intimate home footage shot by Ardern’s husband Clarke Gayford and behind the scenes material, shows Ardern devoid of artifice, genuinely upset by the mass shootings and the actions she was forced to take over Covid. 

It also chronicles her rise and decline in popularity and the backlash she faced over her lockdown policies resulting in violent demonstrations by anti-vaxers and conspiracy theorists who dubbed her a Nazi. However the film does not address those left-wing critics who slammed her government for failing to resolve child poverty, housing and social inequality which her government had promised to do. It did, however, decriminalise abortion and introduced some climate policies such as the Zero Climate Act. 

Ardern was the ideal leader in a crisis. Both compassionate and assertive, unlike some current heads of state who rule by division, control and fear. 

She proved you can be a breastfeeding mum and a prime minister, and hopefully she can inspire future leaders to govern with empathy, kindness and humanity which is exactly what we need right now.

In cinemas December 5