2 hours ago
3
Picking a Christmas movie is hard work. It needs to be suitable for the entire family, which rules out Die Hard, and entertaining for the whole family, which rules out It’s a Wonderful Life. It has to be good, which rules out Love Actually, and it has to suit distracted viewing, which rules out Muppet Christmas Carol, of which it’s a sin to miss a single second.
There is, however, no rule that says Christmas movies must include Christmas. Which is why Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople is the perfect Christmas movie.
To check some boxes for the yuletide pedants: it has snow. It even features Carol of the Bells (or at least its Ukrainian predecessor, Shchedryk). And while the holidays aren’t explicitly mentioned, Hunt for the Wilderpeople has the spirit of an antipodean Christmas – an odd-couple adventure bursting with humour, irreverence and endlessly quotable lines.
Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) is a real bad egg – his preteen rap sheet includes “spitting, running away, throwing rocks, kicking stuff … and that’s just the stuff we know about”. Waititi introduces Ricky like a Clint Eastwood character; he wordlessly circles his last-chance foster home, then tries to climb back into the police car that brought him there. But Ricky soon warms up to the infectiously affectionate Aunty Bella (Rima Te Wiata) and her surly husband Hec (Sam Neill). When Bella dies, Ricky and Hec escape into the bush and find themselves on the run from the law, with only each other to rely on.
In the hands of any other director, Ricky and Hec’s story could easily become saccharine, but Waititi makes it a rollicking good time replete with car chases, shootouts and Lord of the Rings references. Ricky is an aspiring gangster while Hec is a practised bushman, and they sling insults and haikus at each other in equal measure. It’s a rare found family narrative that feels like actual family: squabbly, antagonistic and entirely sincere.
Wilderpeople was the last film Waititi made before going global with Thor: Ragnarok, and there’s a distinct Kiwi-ness to the film – out of time and unapologetically daggy, from Bella’s cat jumper to a funeral service that namechecks Fanta, Doritos and Coke Zero. The film revels in the natural beauty of the New Zealand landscape, but it doesn’t sugarcoat the modern country’s realities. Ricky is at constant risk of going to juvie, unable to integrate into a system that has failed him and countless other children. Authority figures are comically incompetent, from child welfare to the hunters trying to bag the reward on Hec’s head, but that incompetence makes them dangerous.
The film has a rambling, yarn-spinning pace, but it’s held together by Dennison’s phenomenal performance as Ricky. It’s a tough ask for a teenager to hold his own against Sam Neill, but Dennison delivers a perfect mix of comic overconfidence, deep insecurity and endless likability. Neill channels everyone’s grumpy old uncle as Hec, but the real standout is Rachel House as Paula Hall, a Terminator-tinged child welfare officer who perfectly captures the gleeful way that petty authority figures can make a kid’s life hell. House has long been Waititi’s secret weapon; as well as appearing in almost all of his films, House was an acting coach for the young stars of Boy and Wilderpeople, and the results speak for themselves.
There are many other reasons Wilderpeople is perfect holiday viewing: it’s broken into chapters that makes it easy to join at any point (while pilfering lunch leftovers). It’s a family film that doesn’t pull its punches, comically or dramatically. For families about to embark on ill-advised camping trips, it’ll provide some excellent insults to sling at each other when everything goes wrong. And above all, it’s fun – on the first or 30th watch. What is Christmas about if not joy?
