Critic Reviews

Offering an eye-opening insider perspective that comes as a reminder of what conviction politics looks like when it is maintained even under extreme pressure, as well as being a celebration of feminism, Prime Minister holds appeal for audiences well beyond New Zealand’s shores.

In the fleet, pacey manner of the editing, toggling between private and public moments with highlight-reel efficiency, the film is a stirring glimpse of top-down kindness as a winning leadership style.

The sad thing is that there doesn’t appear to be much space for someone like Ardern in modern politics; less space than ever in fact.

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 thus an against the grain movie of its moment, out of step politically, and an intimate to the point of myopic doc that zeroes in on the personality it is profiling.

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

As sympathetic — and therefore potentially biased — as “Prime Minister” is to its subject, former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, it’s also one of the most arrestingly intimate political documentaries you’ll see.

That interplay between work and life gives the project its distinctive perspective and offers the most acute revelations. The lack of talking heads commenting on her enhances the intimate feel.

As a portrait of struggles in the seat of power, the film presses all the right emotional buttons.

It all comes across as one-sided, which makes the whole thing play like a PR video rather than a genuine examination of her premiership.