★★★★★ - STUFF
- Miki Magasiva's haunting, heart-warming debut simply stunning -
Mareta Percival (Anapela Polataivao) has always put her kids’ first.
Not necessarily her own flesh and blood – teenage daughter Lanita (Tiare Lily Savea) is more than capable of looking after herself – but rather the students at her Aranui primary school.
Even her colleague and best friend Rona (Nicole Whippy) can’t quite believe Mareta is working on new choreography for the school choir, rather than being by Lanita’s side as she prepares for an audition that could determine her musical and educational future.
Fielding an anxious call from the CTV Studios, Mareta calms her daughter down by reminding her that “you can sing this blindfolded” and taking her through her warm-up exercises.
It will be the last conversation they ever have. February 22, 2011 not only shaking Christchurch to its core, but turning Mareta’s world upside down.
Three years on and she’s still struggling to come to terms with her loss. The local minister is keen for her to assist with his flailing choir (“Too many shrieking ladies, I feel for your neighbourhood dogs,” is her pithy assessment, as she waves him away), while one of her former charges Sio (Beulah Koale), now a social welfare officer, continues to urge her to join his support group and at least do the bare minimum to enable him to keep her benefits from being canned.
That includes attending the interview he’s set up for her at the inner-city’s prestigious St. Francis of Assisi School. Already a somewhat reluctant candidate, her mood is definitely not improved by having to wait all day to be seen and then being told by the three-person panel that the substitute teacher role is “really a babysitter position” that would be better suited to a person “who is kind of a little bit more like us.”
“What? Wankers?” she retorts as takes her leave, not expecting to hear from them again.
But something about her passion intrigues veteran principal Alan (Dalip Sondhi), especially when he learns that she’s known in Christchurch’s east as “the Godmother of Pacific Education”.
For her part, Mareta is willing to do “only what’s required of me – and that’s it”, but that’s before she meets students like the troubled, but talented Sophie (Antonia Robinson) and thinks she might be able to use her skills to help them find their voice.
However, there are those within the school hierarchy who aren’t so keen on such an untested, “risky” endeavour like a competitive choir. “Everything we do must be at the highest standard. You can’t just throw a Sunday School group together, hold hands and sing Kumbaya,” seethes deputy principal Peter Wadsworth (Jamie Irvine).
Miki Magasiva's haunting and heart-warming debut feature is a simply stunning, crowd-pleasing delight. Sure it might be essentially a contemporary, Christchurch-set (albeit, slightly disappointingly mostly Auckland-shot), Samoan Kiwi version of Dead Poets Society, To Sir With Love or Mr. Holland’s Opus, but it’s told with such aroha and chutzpah (and with a knowing knowledge of the Garden City’s obsession with high school education and class perception), that it’s hard not to be swept along by the story, cheer every success and snappy one-liner, hiss at the prejudice on display and find yourself having to wipe away a tear or two at least more than once during the two-hour running time.
Magasiva (brother of actors Robbie and the late Pua) and co-writer Mario Gaoa (Uproar, Bro’Town) have done a fabulous job of balancing sometimes wicked humour with the film’s weightier themes. As a portrait of grief, Tinā certainly puts many a big-budget Hollywood movie to shame.
While kudos should also go to casting director Mike Dwyer for putting together such a fine ensemble of established and young, relatively inexperienced actors (former Mystic star Robinson is particularly impressive as Sophie), the heart and soul of Tinā is Samoan-born Polataivao (The Justice of Bunny King, One Thousand Ropes). Stealing every scene, milking the most out of all the best lines and drawing your attention towards her in every frame, her revelatory performance is a tour de force that is not only deserving of every accolade coming her way, but also should herald a bright future – should she wish it. Polataivao might just be New Zealand’s best-kept acting secret – until now.
Throw in a fabulous soundtrack that includes heartfelt, thematically appropriate renditions of Welcome Home and Don’t Dream Its Over and the result is a cathartic and joyously magical movie that’s likely to fully entertain and entrance cinemagoers of all ages.
- James Croot, STUFF
Tinā is now playing at Light House Cinema!