The reviews are firmly positive, with six of seven in favour and none against. Most critics describe a raw, hard-hitting drama about domestic violence in a Maori family in South Auckland, and the praise gathers around two things: Rena Owen’s performance as Beth, the mother trying to hold the household together, and Lee Tamahori’s assured, stylish direction of a first feature. Several treat it as social melodrama at its most intense, and Empire notes that the style never tips into lecturing.
The reservations concern the relentlessness. The Los Angeles Times finds the piling up of woes blunts the film’s own impact, The Independent sometimes wishes it would pull its punches, and The New York Times calls it rough-edged and crudely obvious in places. Even so the spread is narrow, from lukewarm approval to outright admiration, and the warmest notice is also the most recent, with The Guardian ranking it among the strongest directorial debuts of the 1990s.