Prime Minister’s Review – Jacinda Ardern’s photo shows a full human being in charge for once | film

nFormer New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern emerges from this documentary the way she appeared when she was in power from 2017 to 2023… as a human being. More than any politician anywhere in the world during my adult life, she seemed like a genuine member of the human race who had jumped into office too quickly to acquire the defensive armor of a professional politician. She was vulnerable, vulnerable, and lovable in ways completely alien to everyone else.

This sympathetic film has clearly been edited in a way that omits most of the difficult business of domestic politics and puts that humanity at the forefront, though there is a wonderful moment at the end when her co-star Clarke Gifford gently asks her if she’s doing too much; With a little flash of mood she asks if he’s asking her to “delegate.” Gifford got a close-up of Denis Thatcher there. Did we see a subtle moment of the incivility that is vital to all successful politicians?

Ardern has been the target of misogyny – as has Australia’s Julia Gillard – but she has never seemed hardened, bitter or even changed that much. The film traces, with intimate access, her life with Gifford as she became the intelligent and personable new leader of the New Zealand Labor Party in 2017 and then, in short order, Prime Minister – first in coalition and then on her own, the world’s youngest elected leader. (She even gave birth to a child while in office.) Ardern handled the Christchurch mosque shootings with absolute sincerity and compassion; She spent her political capital smartly at that moment by banning assault rifles. The world loved her for it.

Then when Covid came, Ardern was not only politically skilled, she had what Napoleon valued in his generals: she was lucky – at first. New Zealand appeared to have narrowly escaped the worst of the outbreak, but then a new wave hit, Ardern’s poll numbers fell, and the new far-right anti-vaccine mob camped out outside Parliament. The film shows how they succumb to the delicious thrill of bullying a woman. The sad thing is that there doesn’t seem to be much room for someone like Ardern in modern politics; Less space than ever in fact.