Prime Minister

The documentary acts as an intimate study of what it means to serve others when it seems like the world is falling apart and to be a partner and mother at the same time.

“Prime Minister” is an essential political portrait in how it seeds optimism and concern, leaving you with hope that more Jacinda Arderns are in the wings ready to enshrine common sense, despite the risks.

There's something incredibly, wistfully sad about this sympathetic documentary charting the rise and fall of New Zealand's third female Prime Minister, Dame Jacinda Ardern.

“Prime Minister” reminds us, the role that the internet and sharply ideological news sources play in our lives shifted dramatically in just the years Ardern was in office.

The qualities that endeared Ardern to the world and — for her first term, at least — to her country were a directness, intelligence, drive and unglamorous charm that “Prime Minister” convincingly presents as entirely unmanufactured.

In many ways, the documentary is as unprecedented as Ardern’s career.

Utz & Walshe manage to craft an intimate narrative of the highs and many lows of a political career so where you almost forget you are watching a documentary and drawn into Ardern’s life of doing her best for the people she has been asked to lead.

A fine examination of a world leader, even if you don't wish for her to take over as leader as your own country.

If this documentary has irreplaceable, unique value, it’s the way that it illustrates an explosion of hostility against public women figures regardless of their demeanor. Any woman, even one as mild as Ardern, becomes an enemy

Like Ardern herself, the film is clearly intent on shining a light on the good, on what's possible when leaders lead from kindness and potential not fear and scarcity...