Rena Owen is reason enough to see Lee Tamahori’s painful family drama, which sometimes piles on more misery than it needs. We recommend it, with a firm warning about the domestic violence and little prospect of an easy evening.
Lee Tamahori’s Once Were Warriors is a family drama we recommend, with a warning that its domestic violence is difficult to watch. It follows the Hekes, an urban Māori family, and Beth’s struggle to keep them together. Riwia Brown’s screenplay asks us to understand why that task matters to her, even when we want her spared the effort. The film can be blunt, but Rena Owen’s Beth is compelling enough to make its bluntness worth bearing.
Owen gives Beth a fierceness that never makes the harm seem manageable. Her performance allows us to admire Beth’s strength while questioning how much more she should have to bear. We were horrified by the violence against her. Owen makes her struggle to keep the household together so pressing that we cannot treat the assaults as set pieces and wait for the film to move on.
Temuera Morrison’s Jake Heke gives the domestic strife a frightening physical presence, but Owen prevents him from monopolising our attention. That matters in a drama where force could easily overwhelm every other kind of behaviour. The children show what the adults’ troubles cost those with little say in them. Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell plays Grace, Julian Arahanga is Nig and Taungaroa Emile is Boogie, and their presence keeps the drama from shrinking to a contest between its leads.
Stuart Dryburgh’s cinematography gives the urban setting a visual force that matches the actors’ intensity. The stylishness is useful: the Hekes’ lives never seem like material assembled for a lecture on domestic violence. Tamahori keeps our attention on people living through it, with a threatened Māori culture still present beyond their immediate troubles. The drawback is that this forceful way of filming can make already painful material feel overemphasised.
Michael Horton’s editing makes the 99 minutes feel tightly packed, with little relief from the family’s troubles. That concentration gives the drama momentum, although it also makes the accumulated suffering feel too deliberately arranged. Murray Grindlay and Murray McNabb’s music helps sustain the emotional pressure. It works within Tamahori’s emphatic approach, but we occasionally wished the film would let Owen supply all the force a scene needed.
The film belongs to the blunt end of social melodrama, where family trouble is made to speak about a wider society. Brown and Tamahori sometimes make those connections too obvious, piling on suffering after we have understood the damage. The children are particularly vulnerable to being used to demonstrate what is wrong with the adults. Yet the performances keep making the Hekes feel like people worth attending to, even when the writing is arranging their troubles too neatly.
The domestic violence deserves a plain warning, especially for anyone whose own experience may make it difficult to watch. We recommend the film for its performances, provided an unrelenting family drama is what the evening can bear. Give it your attention, and leave room afterwards for something quieter.
