Parky At the Pictures (7/8/2026)

(Reviews of Love Me Tender; The Summer Book; Hunt For the Wilderpeople; and A Dairy Story)

LOVE ME TENDER.

Following her debut feature, Gold For Dogs (2021), 35 year-old Fémis graduate Anna Cazenave Cambet draws on an autofictional novel by former lawyer Constance Debré for her sophomore outing, Love Me Tender. Nominated for the Queer Palm at the Cannes Film Festival, this thoughtful treatise on how motherhood impacts upon personal identity and the perceptions of others provides conclusive proof that if you want to your film done right, hire Vicki Krieps.

When not trying to write, Clémence Delcourt (Vicki Krieps) goes swimming and hangs out with her friends in Paris. She's in a casual relationship with Elisabeth (Tallulah Cassavetti), but also has encounters with women in the changing rooms at the baths. For two decades, she has been married to Laurent Lévêque (Antoine Reinartz) and, despite their separation, they have a good relationship when it comes to raising their eight year-old son, Paul (Viggo Ferreira-Redier), who uses his father's surname.

Everything changes, however, after Clémence tells her husband that she is dating girls. He seems to take the news well during a dinner date, but starts keeping her from seeing Paul and, after six months, hits her with a court hearing to grant him full custody and strip her of parental responsibility on the grounds of incest and paedophilia. Elisabeth breaks up with her because she won't open up to her and Clémence has to endure a brutal pre-hearing session with a judge, in which Laurent's lawyer accuses her of exposing her child to her sordid sex life and being workshy when she explains that she can't afford an apartment with a separate room for her son to stay in.

Moving to a friend's place, Clémence tears up an old photo of Laurent and writes in her latest chapter about her lack of faith in a legal system that works very slowly in his favour. She writes how avoiding children has become a necessity, yet she can't manage to arrange a meeting with Paul because there are so many hoops to jump and they depend on Laurent being willing to engage.

Frustrated, Clémence allows her to be seduced by a stranger in a bar, who dances in front of her table as she tries to write. She writes about giving birth to Paul and being pleased at how cross he looked. As all her childhood dogs had resumed their hunting careers after they had puppies, she thought her life would return to normal. But motherhood makes demands on a woman and changes how people expect you to conduct yourself. In her text, she admits this had come as a shock.

Clémence goes to visit her father (Féodor Atkine) in the country and he reminds her that her mother was her age when she died. Cleared as fit by a court-appointed psychiatrist (who informs her that Laurent is manipulating Paul to say he hates her), Clémence goes to the meeting centre and chats to a mother of three who resents having to let her youngsters see their brutish father. She thinks it's sweet that Clémence still has hope in her eyes, but this is rapidly diminished when the patronising social worker informs her that she has to discuss a way forward with Laurent and that (even though she has not seen Paul in 18 months) the soonest they can hope for is two months.

Spending a sad Christmas Day with her father, Clémence trades her scooter for a push bike and moves into a room in a shared house with the much younger Léo (Julien de Saint-Jean) who thinks it's cool that she's into girls. She gets a supervised visit with Paul, who is delighted to see her and quite chatty, while she's overwhelmed and tearful, from a mix of relief and self-consciousness because they are being monitored by two mediators, Madame Dureau (Aurélia Petit) and Marie (Samantha Le Bas). They promise to pass on Paul's request to see his grandfather by the sea.

Feeling liberated, Clémence goes clubbing and bumps into Victoire (Ji-Min Park) who had come to a bookshop reading and flirted when she asked for her copy of Go Down to be signed. At her next meeting with Paul, he can't think of anything to say and she discovers that parents at his school have given statements saying she is sick. When he fails to show for a visit to grandpa, Laurent insists on coming to a café to explain and uses the opportunity to play the victim and accuse Clémence of being aggressive towards him. She goes to the coast anyway and is rewarded by her father revealing that he sympathises with Laurent because it can't be easy reading a book in which your wife boasts about being a lesbian.

On her next meeting with Paul, she finds he has a mobile phone and that Laurent has forbidden him to give her his number. The mediators feel sorry for her, as they watch on taking notes and Clémence feels flat. She meets up with some friends and notices Sarah (Monia Chokri) across the room. Sidling over, she swaps three guesses at her job for Sarah's phone number and is pleased with herself when Sarah fails and she gets that she is a journalist. As they part outside, Sarah pulls away from a clumsy attempt at a kiss, but whispers for Clémence to call her.

Eventually, Paul agrees to visit his grandfather and Laurent makes a fuss of him at the station and is put out when Paul wants to get on the train with his mother. They have an idyllic stayover and watch The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) on the television. On the return journey, Paul reassures her that they will get through this, only for Laurent to accuse her of getting physical when she taps his arm on the platform to confirm their meeting in a fortnight.

Needing closeness, Clémence calls on Sarah and they spend the night making love. She is amused by Clémence's mix of cockiness and insecurity and nestles into her shoulder as they watch Cries and Whispers (1972) on television. Staying with her father, Clémence writes about her hopes and dreams with Sarah and realises this is very different from her other relationships. Sarah accepts an invitation to stay and they swim naked in the lake. But she won't have sex out of respect for Clémence's father.

Back in Paris, Clémence moves in and promises Sarah to be monogamous. However, she is hurt when she realises when they are out shopping for a gift that Clémence hasn't mentioned her to Paul. He's pleased with the jacket and claims he will take her surname when he's 18. Suddenly, however, he has a tantrum because Clémence had broken a promise to take him to the seaside during the holidays. He kicks over his chair and thows the coat across the table before stomping off. Mme Dureau tells her that she knows what Laurent is doing and reassures her that things will work out, but Clémence is angry with herself, as well as Laurent, and she also kicks the chair over.

Returning to her room at Léo's place, Clémence has a drab date with Sarah at a Chinese restaurant. She despairs when Laurent starts blocking all her agreed meeting times and Mme Dureau calls off the record to say that she is on her side. However, when they suggest getting Child Protection involved at the risk of Paul being placed in foster care, Clémence shaves her hair off. When she sleeps with Sarah, she senses that she is tired of her arrogance and instability and confides her regrets to her new book.

Much to her surprise. Mme Dureau arranges for Clémence and Paul to cycle off into Paris for two hours. Apologising for not having enough time to do anything like bowling, she tells him that he's turned out grand and smiles when he claims it's the Delcourt blood. They sit in a Catholic church ablaze with votive candles and she asks if he remembers that this was his favourite place when he was small. He doesn't, but cheers her up by asking if he can leave some things at her place when he's allowed to visit.

As she leaves the centre, Clémence is taken aback to find Sarah waiting outside. She backs away from a kiss and gets angry because Laurent might have seen them together. Sarah claims the centre is a convenient way of preventing her from meeting her son and she walks away when Clémence declares him off limits and yells at her for suggesting that her sacrifices and struggles were `not normal'. Following her home, they cry together and agree to part.

With the help of her supportive friend, Yann (Manuel Vallade), Clémence finds a small apartment with a room for Paul. In a voiceover from her book, however, she reveals that Laurent had blocked meetings prior to a custody hearing and, as a result, Paul had informed the judge that he didn't want to see his mother, even though he no longer thought she was crazy. When she next goes to collect Paul, Laurent has gathered four friends to act as witnesses and she goes to the police to file her eighth complaint against him. None have been acted upon and the male cop sympathises with her because childhood passes so quickly and the time lost can't be clawed back. She remains calm, as she makes her statement, with non-diegetic cello music playing loudly as her voice periodically fades out.

As she cycles back to Belleville in her white vest and skinhead cut, Clémence muses in voiceover that she has passed the mourning period. She has grieved for her son and now it's up to him what he chooses to do. As she rarely dreams of him and no longer feels sad when she sees other kids, she feels ready to move on and take what happens next - who can tell with teenagers?

Superbly played, if sometimes unpersuasively scripted, this is a commendable study of a woman seeking to redefine herself after quitting her job, ending her marriage, and eschewing heteronormativity. By having Clémence quote from her (somewhat purple) prose, Anna Cazenave Cambet is able to smuggle in a good deal of exposition. But her screenplay offers so little information about Clémence the lawyer or the wife/mother/daughter that it's difficult to gauge the origins of her impetuosity, sexual voracity, and emotional enclosedness. What prompted her to leave Laurent and how did she feel about losing everyday contact with Paul? Does she only write books and, if so, who publishes them for what remuneration? Has she always dressed like this? And has she always known she was queer?

Without such answers, Clémence can feel like a convenient construct rather than a fleshed character, in spite of the brilliance of Vicki Krieps's performance. She embraces Clémence's complexities and the fact she is far from perfect, as either a mother or a lover. But some of the secondary characterisation is a bit standardised. Whether or not Laurent is based on fact, his unforgivably chauvinist behaviour feels rooted in melodramatic petulance rather than vindictive humiliation, while Sarah appears from nowhere with no backstory and proceeds to impose rules and make demands without giving much of herself or making many compromises in return. Such is the nature of feature storytelling - so much has to be compressed or omitted. But, even though Cazenave Cambet digresses into pillow scenes with Clémence's father and younger housemate, there is too little sense here of lives being lived between the emotional, and occasionally emotive, set-pieces.

Such misgivings aside, Cazenave Cambet potently demonstrates how society judges mothers by impossibly high and unfair standards. Clémence is punished by Laurent for scuffing his masculinity, but she is also penalised by the system for `abandoning' her child. Several recent features have centred on women deemed `bad mothers' battling (with the odds stacked against them) for access to or custody of their offspring. Only Xavier Legrand's Custody (2017) and Delpine Deloget's All to Play For (2023) have presented the process with similar acuity and this is as much down to the restrained excellence of Viggo Ferreira-Redier in the incredibly difficult role of the weather vane-like Paul as it is to Krieps, whose shifts in body language during the sessions contrast so starkly with her looser-limbed demeanour with friends or lovers.

Cinematographer Kristy Baboul's use of close-ups also proves key to capturing the claustrophobic unnaturalness of the centre meetings, while Cazenave Cambet deftly makes it clear what is happening between father and son off screen and how Laurent is more concerned with avenging himself on Clémence than he is with the psychological impact that his tactics might have on Paul. We can only guess the effect that Clémence's courageously transgressive concluding decision to be a fit mother and a free woman will have on her boy. But the fact she makes peace with herself as she takes it means that while this may only be intermittently moving, it's one of the boldest cinematic assertions of women's rights to have emerged in quite some time.

THE SUMMER BOOK.

Although Tove Jansson's most beloved creations first appeared in the 1992 feature, Comet in Moominland (1992), the majority of fans will most fondly remember The Moomins (1978-82), a Polish TV series that combined felt figures and stop-motioned puppets. Since then, a handful of animations have been based on Jonsson's carefully crafted tomes, including Moomin and Midsummer Madness (2008), Moomins and the Comet Chase (2010), Moomins on the Riviera (2014), Moomins and the Winter Wonderland (2017), and The Exploits of Moominpappa (2022).

However, since Alma Pöysti took the lead in Zaida Bergroth's biopic, Tove (2020), more attention has been paid to the Finnish writer and illustrator and her non-Moomin works. Among the most popular is the 1972 novel, The Summer Book, which has now been adapted as a live-action rite of passage by American director, Charlie McDowell.

Following the death of his wife, a father (Anders Danielson Lie) takes his octogenarian mother (Glenn Close) and his eight year-old daughter, Sophia (Emily Matthews), to the family cabin on a remote island in the Gulf of Finland. The wind whips, but the snow has melted and Sophia enjoys throwing seaweed at his father and slurping her soup at supper. Grandmother indulges her because she has been through a lot at a young age and her father is still deep in mourning. But she knows that the trip can help heal her son and refocus his attention on the daughter who needs him.

Sophia finds some seeds in a box under the desk and sulks when her father is too busy with a commissioned illustration to plant them with her. Grandmother steps in to ask Sophia if she thinks there are more stars in the sky than fish in the sea. They also share their doubts that a poplar sapling the father has planted (because it was his wife's favourite tree) will take root. However, the old lady warns Sophia not to tell her father that she was sick when they went for a walk in the magic woods.

Eriksson (Ingvar Sigurdsson) comes in his boat to drop off some fireworks for Midsummer and tells Sophia to let her father know that they are damp and need drying out. He has also brought her a black cat in a cardboard box and she names her Moppy. She promises they will never be separated, but the animal has other ideas and Sophia asks her grandmother why Moppy doesn't love her as much as she does her. Grandmother has sloped off for a quiet smoke and is amused that Sophia always manages to find her and smiles when she peppers her peevish grumbles with the word `bloody'.

Hardly seeing her father, who has erected the tent in which he spent his honeymoon, Sophia asks her grandmother to make a list for Midsummer because Eriksson is coming to spend it with them. She fails to notice, however, that the old woman has a bit of a crush on the man who can never be tied down. He doesn't come and it rains and Sophia admonishes Moppy for bringing her a dead mouse. Even though it's still light, they light the fireworks, but only the third and last works. Sophia tuts that it might as well be Midwinter, but laughs when her father pretends the dud fireworks are carrying him off.

Grandmother has Sophia row her to a neighbouring island for a snoop around. They go up to the modern house on the hill and agree it's not their kind of thing. As they leave, however, they run into the owners, Mr and Mrs Molander (Pekka Strang and Sophia Heikkilä), who have just landed with their son. Invited up for blueberry pie and drinks, grandmother urges Sophia to keep her elbows off the table and benefit from a rare chance to socialise. Rowing home, however, she admits she doesn't like what the Molanders are planning to do to preserve the landscape.

Frustrated by grandmother taking so long to play a card, Sophia blurts out `Jesus Christ' and is reprimanded for taking the Lord's name in vain. She protests he's only the son before grizzling that she doesn't care about his relatives and stomps off to the attic after declaring she has had enough of all families. Sophia even drops a note through the trapdoor to underline her frustration and grandmother wishes her son would spend more time with his daughter and less wallowing in self-pity. As he starts to write a reply, Sophia spies on him through a knothole in the floor.

While helping her grandmother tend the poplar sapling, Sophia cuts a worm in half and they work together on a story about how a worm must feel when it becomes two instead of one. She insists her grandmother writes by torchlight, as she's propped up in bed, coughing occasionally. When asked if she wants the story read back, Sophia says she hasn't got time, but urges grandmother to keep it for her children. Father sees her sorting pages, but doesn't enquire about the content.

When Sophia insists on joining her father to the next island, grandmother seizes the alone time to smoke, swim, and walk naked in the woods. She lies on her side and enjoys the quiet and being at one with Nature. On her return, Sophia follows her to the tent and badgers her with questions about setting up a girl scout troop on the island and why she can't always remember the things she wants to. Grandmother tells her that days are rushing in on one another and the past seems to be slipping out of her grasp. Without meaning to be insensitive, Sophia asks if she is going to die and whether someone will have to dig a hole - an inquiry that prompts the old woman to lie on her bed with her arms across her chest, as if testing what it might be like inside her coffin.

As grandmother had forgotten what it was like to sleep in a tent, Sophia does it for her and comes into her bedroom in the middle of the night to report back. She describes pine needles sliding down the canvas, the heightened sounds, the sense of cosiness, and the sensation of the island shrining into the tent and floating away on the sea like a raft. Grandmother lies back and enjoys the descriptions and the memories they invoke.

Having asked grandmother how God answers prayers and been told he has assistant when he's busy, Sophia (who is `bored as beef') asks for a storm to hit the little boat they're sailing to an island with a lighthouse. Father bobs on the tide, while Sophia and grandmother go to explore and she loves the view from the lantern room. However, she can see a storm rolling in and asks God if she can change her mind. But it's too late and they just about take cover in an empty house, while the father has to wade through the swell to pull the rowing boat to shore by a rope. Entering the room, he informs Sophia that he had also been praying for a storm and that things were not all her fault. When she falls asleep on his lap, his mother comes over to give him a reassuring hug.

Back on their island, grandmother paddles under a parasol, as father and daughter go diving off the rocks. She looks across fondly before taking in the view that has always enchanted her. When her son starts to cough, she takes Sophia to collect items for a posy to place near his bed. They take two leaves from the poplar, which is now sturdy enough to be untied from its support sticks.

Hearing father and daughter laugh, grandmother goes to bed. But she gets up in the night to pee outside before making her way to the rocks. She thinks she hears Eriksson's boat, but realises it's the sound of her own heart and she lies down, as the sun rises over the gently lapping water.

To be forgiven for his over-indulgence in magic hour shots across the Baltic archipelago, Charlie McDowell makes a respectful job of capturing the rhythms and rituals of island life, as well as the wistfully poetic spirit of Tove Jansson's writing. Ending with snapshots of the author at her own holiday home on Klovharu, this date-evading saga marks a departure from McDowell's first three features, The One I Love (2014), The Discovery (2017), Windfall (2022), although he retains a hint of the unknown, as we never discover how Sophia's mother died or whether she had anything to do with it (as is fleetingly implied by her tearful apology to her father that everything is her fault).

With Anders Danielson Lie being somewhat marginalised, Glenn Close is obviously the star, with her Streeplike Finnish accent, ataxic gait, and granny hair and make-up. Yet, while she deftly conveys a fond nostalgia for her own girlhood holidays and a sense of acceptance that her time is running out, it's the debuting Emily Matthews who steals the show, with her watchful expressions and unactorly dialogue delivery perfectly suiting a nine year-old who speaks bluntly and expects answers to the questions she poses (about matters trivial and significant) without always realising their emotionalism. Close guides Matthews through amusing and affecting scenes alike, as the nature of the bond between Sophia and her grandmother shifts over the summer from consolation and distraction to instruction and encouragement. But, in teaching her self-sufficiency, she is also nudging her granddaughter back towards the father on whom she is going to have to rely in her absence.

Screenwriter Robert Jones assembles a series of set-pieces rather than structuring a cohesive narrative, although this suits the summer setting, as days tumble in on each other and are punctuated by unexpected encounters, rowing boat excursions, and changes in the weather. This makes it seem all the more grating when Danielson Lie looks heavenwards during the storm to ask the God he has lost faith in if this is the best he can do. Otherwise, Jussi Rautaniemi's measured editing transmits the relaxed tempo of daily life, which is reinforced by Polish pianist Hania Rani's temperate score and Micke Nyström's redolent sound design. Norwegian maestro Sturla Brandth Grøvlen's photography is evocative throughout, whether capturing the rugged scenery or the spartan cosiness of production designer Lina Nordqvist's interiors, which emphasises the physical proximity and emotional distance between father and daughter as they process the overwhelming grief that has come between them. Nicely judged and cumulatively affecting, if never exactly compelling, this may well pave the way for adaptations of such other non-Moomin volumes as Sculptor's Daughter (1968), Listening (1971), The Sun City (1974), The True Deceiver (1982), and Fair Play (1989).

HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE.

As this charming film has been reissued to mark its 10th anniversary and the passing of Sam Neill, a review from September 2016 is reprinted here.

New Zealander Taika Waititi has demonstrated an understanding of the juvenile mindset since stationing tweenagers Rangi Ngamoki and Hutini Waikato in a pub car park in the Oscar-nominated short, Two Cars, One Night (2004). But, having further explored the 11 year-old psyche with James Rolleston in Boy (2010), Waititi has decided to tackle a troublesome teenager in Hunt for the Wilderpeople, which has been adapted with infectious vigour from Barry Crump's bestseller, Wild Pork and Watercress. Leavened with knowing movie references, this is a fond parody of the Bush adventure and, if there was any justice, it will continue the rise of Julian Dennison, who debuted impressively in Mark Albiston and Louis Sutherland's Shopping (2013) before teaming with Waititi on the drug-driving video, Blazed (2014

Chapter One, `A Real Bad Egg', opens with teenage delinquent Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) being driven by cop Andy (Oscar Kightley) and social worker Paula (Rachel House) to the remote smallholding where he is going to be fostered by Bella Faulkner (Rima Te Wiata) and her husband, Hector (Sam Neill). With the aid of an amusing montage, Paula warns Bella that Ricky is a real handful. But she gives him a huge hug, tells him to call her auntie and bundles him into the house to meet Zag the dog and give him a feed. She also tucks him in with a hot water bottle.

Ricky, however, considers himself to be a skux gangsta and runs away, as soon as it goes dark. But he only manages to get about 200m from the house before falling asleep and Bella coaxes him home with the promise he can scarper again after breakfast. When Hec tells him to shove off, Ricky seeks out Bella, who is skinning rabbits. She tells him about the Bush and how she hopes her spirit will rest in the lake that touches the clouds. He confides that he writes haiku to cope with emotional stress and she shows him how to fire a rifle. But, when they come across a wild pig while walking in the woods, Ricky faints when Bella slaughters it with a knife.

On Ricky's birthday, he joins in with a special song Bella has composed on a mini keyboard. But Hec coughs irritably when the candles are blown out in his face and merely shrugs when they take Ricky to the barn to meet his new dog, Tupac. Snuggling in bed, he thanks Bella for the best day ever and she apologises for not finding him soon enough. Yet, when Ricky comes home after a morning romping with Tupac in the fields, he finds Hec by the clothesline, sobbing over Bella's lifeless body.

Only a handful of neighbours come to the funeral conducted by the local pastor (Taika Waititi). He preaches about a door that leads into a room full of goodies. But, when he asks what might be behind a second door, he snaps at Ricky for suggesting vegetables instead of Jesus and testily prays for God to make it easier to get through doors hiding good stuff.

At the start of `Chapter Two: Another Door', Ricky brings Hec a plate of burnt toast for supper. The old man thrusts a letter into his hand and tells him to read it aloud and Ricky discovers that social services are coming to collect him because it is inappropriate for Hec to raise the boy without a woman in the house. Brusquely dismissing the suggestion to find a new wife, Hec claims not to care if Ricky goes back to the city and dies in a drive-by shooting after becoming a drug-dealing rapper. So, taking the casket containing Bella's ashes, Ricky burns himself in effigy in an outhouse and leaves a note bidding farewell to the cruel world before heading into the woods with Tupac.

Only a few strides into `Chapter Three: Goodbye Ricky Baker', Ricky polishes off the loaf he had stuffed into his bag and complains that he would go home immediately if he wasn't lost. Hallucinating that Tupac is an ice-cream sundae and Hec a giant burger, he is relieved to see the gnarled bushman. But, to disguise their feelings, they trade insults about Ricky's survival skills and Hec's inability to read. Ricky suggests they compose haiku to deal with their issues, but Hec isn't the poetic type and makes a lunge to catch his charge. However, he wedges his ankle between some tree roots and informs Ricky that they are going to have to camp in the wilds until the fracture has healed.

Appalled by the prospect of using leaves for toilet paper, Ricky hunkers down. But, as `Chapter Four: Broken Foot Camp' commences, Paula and Andy find the charred ruins of the hut and she summons reinforcements to help track the fugitives. However, Hec is going nowhere and passes the time making sketches of Bella, while Ricky dances to his Walkman and daubs warrior lines on his face before going hunting. Having being knocked over by the rifle recoil, Ricky manages to bring back a few sprigs of `salad' and is grateful that Hec has managed to catch an eel in the river. When he asks how he did it, Hec tells him about `the knack' and listens quietly as Ricky remembers his friend Amber, who died soon after reporting her foster father for making her feel uncomfortable.

While Hec recovers his way into `Chapter Five: Famous', Paula briefs the media and ensures that they all mention her mantra that `no child gets left behind'. Thus, when they come across a ranger hut in the depths of the forest, Ricky and Hec learn that they are all over the newspapers. Aghast to be accused of kidnap, Hec asserts that they shove off after supper. But they are cornered by hunters Hugh (Cohen Holloway), Ron (Stan Walker) and Joe (Mike Minogue), who jump to the conclusion that Hec is a pervert when Ricky makes an innocent protestation sound sinister in the extreme.

As they leap on Hec to teach him a lesson, Ricky fires into the air and they beat a hasty retreat. Camping for the night, Ricky apologises for his foolish yammering and Hec says he can understand his reluctance to return to juvenile hall, as he once spent time behind bars for accidentally killing someone in a drunken brawl. So, they agree to stick out and a montage shows them stealing provisions (including loo roll) from woodland huts and killing prey for bonfire feasts. Moreover, they stay one step ahead of the search party, as the action passes into `Chapter Six: Close to the Sky.'

Basking in the autumn sunshine, Hec looks across the lake and calls the view `magestical'. Ricky ticks him off for making up a word and asks if this is the place Bella wished to rest. But Hec says she didn't really know where she came from, as she was an orphan and that's why she wanted to look after him. Paula has a less charitable outlook on Ricky, however, and shocks the hosts on a breakfast news show by calling him a spanner in the works that she intends putting back in the box. But Ricky has more to worry about, as, soon after stumbling across a bird that might not be as extinct as the experts claim, they find a ranger suffering a diabetic fit in his hut and Ricky and Tupac have to head down the mountain in search of help.

Lumbering into `Chapter Seven: A Normal Life', Ricky spots teenager Kahu (Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne) riding her horse and is almost too tongue-tied to speak. She invites him to jump up and they trot across the sunlit fields. Once home, Kahu offers Ricky sausages and apologises for chattering. But he is so smitten that he can barely tell Kahu apart from the girl in the Flake advert on the television. He explains that he needs to get a doctor, but they are interrupted by Kahu's father. TK (Troy Kingi), who is so delighted to have a celebrity in the house that he takes endless selfies and urges Ricky not to surrender before dashing off.

Ricky also has to leave in a hurry the following morning after dozing off while Kuha plays her guitar. She gives him a lift on horseback and laughs at his ungainly dismount. But Ricky is forced to take cover because Paula and Andy are outside the hut discussing the Stingray system that a geeky technician named Gavin (Hamish Parkinson) has set up to intercept Ricky's phone signal.

Undaunted, he darts into `Chapter Eight: The Knack', as a news update shows TK's selfies going viral and Hugh, Ron and Joe fibbing about giving Hec a thrashing for harming Ricky. As the bulletin ends with details of a reward, Ricky finds himself on the opposite riverbank to Andy and Paula. She taunts him that he is Sarah Connor to her Terminator, but he refuses to betray Hec and is relieved to be reunited with the old man after making his escape.

Remembering a book in the ranger station about trekking wildebeest, he declares that they are the Wilderpeople and they celebrate their new outlaw status by stealing backpacks and supplies from Hugh, Joe and Ron, who are camping in a clearing. However, Hec is beginning to feel the pace and he proposes that they turn themselves in, as they have been on the run for four months. But Ricky protests that he is a menace to society and would be given an awful job like driving a steamroller. As they bicker, Zag and Tupac see a wild boar and give chase. Zag is badly mauled and Hec is also wounded as he tries to stab the beast. Jumping into the ditch, Ricky shoots it between they eyes. But Hec has to put Zag down and they bury him beside a waterfall. Ricky produces Bella's casket and Hec is grateful to him for bringing her somewhere special.

Winter falls and a process 360° shot shows Hec and Ricky trudging through the snow with Paula hard on their heels as they enter Chapter Nine: `Turn of the Tide'. At one point, they hide under the path with the cops passing over their heads and Ricky jokes that it's like something out of The Lord of the Rings. However, Hec has no idea what he is talking about and he is equally bemused when they run into a man camouflaged as a bush. He introduces himself as Psycho Sam (Rhys Darby) and explains that he has lived in a caravan for 15 years because he hates filling in forms and the New Zealand rugby team. He updates them on the news and upsets Hec by confirming that he is still regarded as a pervert. However, opinion is divided as to whether they are heroes or villains.

As they sink into their bunks, Ricky reads a haiku and Hec is pleased to hear his name. He says Bella would have loved the adventure and Ricky asks why they never had children. He finds it ironic that they couldn't have kids when his mum didn't want him. But Hec suggests she was young and scared and would be proud of him now, as he is `pretty likeable'.

Any hopes of lying low are dashed at the outset of `Chapter Ten: War', however, as Sam tinkers with Ricky's phone and activates the Stingray mechanism. Paula gloats that they are surrounded. But Sam lends them an all-terrain truck and Ricky takes the wheel to speed them away from the pursuing cop cars. However, while he doubles back to avoid a line of tanks, Ricky turns the truck over on crashing through a corrugated iron fence and Hec declares he's had enough. Hurt that he is quitting, Ricky informs Paula that Hec is a `molesterer' and becomes so overwrought that he accidentally shoots him in the buttock.

A courtroom montage follows showing the witnesses giving the testimony that convinces the magistrate to let Ricky and Tupac go and live with Kahu and TK. However, he still has unfinished business and, as Hec leaves prison for a halfway house at the start of the `Epilogue', Ricky arrives with a proposition. He is pleased to learn that Hec has taught himself to read and invites him to move to TK's farm and help with the chores. Grumpily grateful, Hec declines, as he has always been his own man. But, as Ricky turns to leave, Hec recites a haiku about being in the Bush with a fat boy being the best time of his life and the story ends with Hec insisting that Ricky calls him `uncle' as they return to their `magestical' place in search of the rare bird that they hope will being them fame and fortune.

First and foremost, this is great fun. Taika Waititi tells an old-fashioned boy's own story with verve and wit, while making exemplary use of Lachlan Milne's widescreen views of the breathtaking North Island scenery. Kristin Seth's costumes are also spot on, with Sam Neill's scruffy, but practical duds contrasting with Julian Dennison's brightly coloured hoodie, baseball jacket and cap. But, while they are pitched as an odd couple, Neill and Dennison both underplay to perfection in order to bring some warmth to the stereotypical old coot role and some fragility to the aspiring gangsta. What most unites them, however, is a fear of being abandoned that is deftly established through Rima Te Wiata's lovely performance as the nurturing wife and surrogate mother.

A couple of the supporting turns are less restrained, with Rachel House struggling to match Pam Ferris's officious compassion as Miss Trunchbull in Danny DeVito's 1996 adaptation of Roald Dahl's Matilda and Rhys Darby straining to inject a little Flight of the Conchords humour into Psycho Sam's eccentricity. But, as he proved with the mock documentary, What We Do in the Shadows (2014), Waititi is able to pull off tonal shifts without upsetting the diegetic balance and, even when this teeters closest to sentimentality, the emotions are slyly blunted by bluff Kiwi nonchalance.

What will stand out for many, however, is the adroit self-reflexivity of the gently parodying references to such new wave classics as Roger Donaldson's Sleeping Dogs (1977) and Smash Palace (1981), and Geoff Murphy's Goodbye Pork Pie (1981), as well as the Mad Max and Lord of the Rings franchises. But, while these gags confirm Waititi as an innovative and irreverent film-maker, it's his trust in Dennison and Neill that makes this the best picture by a New Zealander since Toa Fraser's Dean Spanley (2008).

A DAIRY STORY.

Starting in the Swedish county of Halland with Britt and Inger Georgsson in Peter Gerdehag and Tell Aulin's Women With Cows (2011), cinema's bovine odyssey next took us to Sussex to meet organic dairy farmer Steve Hook and Ida the cow in Andy Heathcote's The Moo Man (2013). Park Farm in Kent was the next destination, as Andrea Arnold provided a sobering account of Luna's pitiful existence in Cow (2021). But Ian Findlay attempts to restore some faith in the milk business, as he transports us to Rainton Farm in Dumfries and Galloway for A Dairy Story, which chronicles a laudable experiment conducted by David and Wilma Finlay.

The Finlays had been running an organic operation for over a decade when Wilma proposed a small, but radical change. So many visitors to the farm had asked why calves were immediately taken away from their mothers and she had gone along with the traditional notion that it was best for all concerned when it came to producing saleable milk. Having come to farming from computing, however, Wilma didn't see why cows couldn't stay with their young for several months in order to ensure happier, healthier animals and greater milk yields.

Dairy manager Charles Ellett explains how cows have personalities and distinct preferences when it comes to milking. He swears some count to ensure they get the stalls they want and points out that they don't like changes in their routine. So, it took some animals a while to get used to rearing their calves after having become accustomed to having them removed within hours of birth. A lovely shot of a calf resting its forehead on its mothers nose suggests the switch had proved beneficial.

David and Wilma had met through an early computer dating agency and she had suggested a modernising process to move the farm on from the buildings and equipment that had been used in the days of David's father. He takes us on a tour of the old pens and the milking parlour, as she explains how productivity dropped after they started cow-with-calf farming. With neighbours willing them to fail and revenues down as bills arrived for the new machinery, the Finlays faced a crisis, which was exacerbated by the fact that their 100-odd cows were used to losing their calves after 24 hours and they became spooked by the new arrangement.

A first experiment in 2012 was abandoned after five months, but David insisted on giving cow-with-calf a concerted go four years later and things steadily started to pay off. As he tells veterinarian Ruth Layton, yields are up by 25% and she marvels at the sight of contented cattle in a field because cows like to have friends and family around them. Charles also likes the freedom that the cows have and the enjoys watching personality traits emerge among the calves.

Fed on mother's milk, these grow more quickly and David admits to a party of visitors that the farm also has a beef-producing wing. Nothing more is said, however, as he focusses on the changes in land use and fencing that had to be implemented after ths switch was made. On the positive side, the farm no longer needs so many pesticides and spends less on feed, so that costs have dropped and they are edging closer towards balancing the books.

Following a day-on-the-farm montage (complete with some accelerated footage), we learn that mothers and calves are now being separated overnight and a poignant sequence follows, in which the very vocal animals are reunited in the morning and trot off to the pasture with a sense of completeness. Touched by such displays, Wilma hopes that other farms follow their example and wishes that cow-with-calf levels would reach those of organic farming. The Finlays visit Michael and Lisa Kelsall at Farm on the Fell in Bleasdale, Lancashire to see how they are adapting to the Rainton regime.

Back in the Borders, David takes soil samples to confirm that carbon levels are rising. He laments that farmers are pawns in the food business and are taught to boost yields rather than farm in an environmentally positive manner. But it's clear from the way the cows and calves romp into a new field that they are happy campers and Charles suggests that farmers who are frustrated with their lot should give their methods a try to get a new lease on life.

At a Q&A launching their book in Wigtown, Wilma reveals that she has stage four lung cancer. She had beaten it before and she jokes that the diagnosis sharpened her mind when it came to getting the text written. A swell of emotive music accompanies shots of the herd being coaxed home and the calves being led into a separate field. By now, they are old enough to fend for themselves and caps are placed over their mother's udders to show them that the milk supply has dried up, even though daily contact is maintained. David claims this simply them being realistic, as they need the milk for the business and the calves can feed in other ways. He also acknowledges that the animals will pass into the food chain, but he hopes they will have had a nice life first.

Wilma accepts that problems will still lie ahead, but the hard part has been done and now they have to convince others that they can copy them. She watches the calves join their mothers, as spring returns and closing captions report that only 21 of the UK's 7200 dairy farms employ the cow-with-calf system. Hopefully, this poignant tribute to Wilma Finlay (who was 69 when she died in March 2025) will help spread the message.

Nicely photographed and edited by Ian Findlay, this is a judiciously selective and meticulously structured documentary that lays its primary emphasis on the plus points of cow-with-calf farming, while limiting references to the beef and lamb production side of the business. This makes sense, as this aspect would not be rammed down the throats of visitors to what has become known as `The Ethical Farm', which also makes its own cheese, as well as hosting educational and food events. But such sidelining leaves one to wonder what else has not been discussed and whether it might have been more useful to see David debating a sceptical farmer rather than showing us footage of his trip to London to attend an off-camera meeting of the Climate Change Committee.

This is a minor quibble, however, as is the questioning of the use of `Living With Shadows' by Cloaks over the closing credits, after the score by Finlay Harrison and Lewis Findlay had been so attunedly bucolic. For the most part, the director allows the Finlays (who have previously appeared on the BBC Scotland rural affairs programme, Landward) to make their proselytising case with a down-to-earthiness that makes it sound so persuasive. However, the visual evidence of the effects on the welfare of the Rainton cows will clinch the deal for many. It might have been nice to discover the personality of one or two animals, but the lowing herd make its presence felt throughout.

A special mention should also be made of sheepdogs Skye and Meg, with the younger one following David everywhere he goes and even helping out with a bit of digging when he goes to collect some soil samples.