Whale Rider Movie Review
Whale Rider
Whale Rider is a lovely little movie about a rural Maori town in New Zealand and their search for a leader. It’s about the struggle for a little girl to be accepted, about the struggle between tradition and modern ideas, fulfilling your dreams, and about love within a family and within a community. It introduces a superb actress, Keisha Castle-Hughes, who later acted in The Nativity Story (as Mary), Star Wars II, Revenge of the Sith (as Queen Apailana), Hey, Hey, It’s Esther Blueberger, (to be released this year and The Vitner’s Luck (in production).
Based on the book by Witi Ihimaera, Whale Rider starts with the birth of Paikea (Pai for short), a little girl named after the traditional Maori ancestor and hero who rode on the back of a whale from Hawaiki to New Zealand. At her birth, her mother and twin brother die. Her father, distraught over the loss of his wife, leaves Pai with her grandparents. Her grandfather, has trouble accepting Pai. He was expecting a first born son to carry on their line of male chiefs. This is his life-long dream, and Pai’s father has suffered for it as well. No one seems to live up to her grandfather’s high expectations, least of all Pai, because she is a girl and automatically disqualified from being a leader. Still, he loves her dearly, as does everyone in the community.
When she is about 11 years old, her father returns to New Zealand with news that he has a pregnant girlfriend in Germany and asks Pai to come live with him. She almost does, but can’t bear to live her grandfather and her home. She goes back to find that he has pretty much disowned her. He starts a traditional training school for the firstborn sons in the community to choose a new chief. Pai tries to join in, but is ostracized, so she secretly listens in and learns some fight training from her uncle. Grandfather’s school ends up being a failure, and he is once again disillusioned. He blames the result on Paikea, whom he caught fighting on the boys’ school grounds (a taboo which he believes will bring a curse). Because of this, he ignores and practically disowns Paikea and she goes to live with her uncle.
Following this are the most moving scenes of the movie: Paikea’s award-winning speech in honor of her grandfather, and the beached whale scene in which Pai proves her destiny and brings her dream to life.
This movie is about fulfilling your dreams, and it fulfills many real-life dreams in the process. Keisha was an 11 year old New Zealand school girl who dreamed of acting but thought it could never be. She was discovered by the same movie caster who found Anna Paquin, another child prodigy in acting. Her performance is incredibly realistic, and she has gone on to act in several other films. The writers and the real New Zealand town the movie was filmed in worked together to create a beautiful piece of art that rings true and brings a beautiful story to life.
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