2002



June 18, 2003
Camera 3
New Zealand / Germany
English
105 minutes

One Young Girl Dared To Confront The Past, Change The Present And Determine The Future -- WHALE RIDER.

Crowd-pleasing (read: unchallenging) story of girl-power in Maori society. A mother dies giving birth to twins, of which only the girl survives. This causes grandpa unbelievable grief as there is no male to pass down the tribal secrets to. When I say unbelievable grief, I am speaking literally. The girl is charming and smart and sweet and cute as a button and loves her family, but this is still not enough for the gruff man she calls Pucker. Pai's grandmother is one of those sass-talking women who comforts Pai after each grandfatherly outburst, saying things like "he thinks he's the boss of me, but he's not, I just let him believe it." She stands by when he belittles her and then is there to pick up the pieces. Pai's father is away in Europe trying his hand at a career in sculpture. Her life is filled with swimming and playing with other kids and keeping tribal traditions alive.

Her grandpa forbids her from taking part in any male-related learning. This gives us scene after scene of bumbling boy messing up a stick fight while behind the wall, our heroine, Pai masters these same skills in minutes. The boys can't swim as well as she, they can't remember the tribal chants like she can, they aren't as mature, etc.

There is no doubt in our minds, as well as the minds of any halfway aware character in the story, that Pai is The One. She spends 90 minutes proving that she is, but her grandpa won't see it. When we see some whales, and we see Pai interact with them, even the grandpa comes around. I was half-expecting the whales to begin doing Shamu-like tricks where they'd spell out something like "Hey grandpa, you're an idiot, look at how much we like Pai" or something.

Good underwater photography of whales, but terrible creature work that made me long for the obvious fakeness of FREE WILLY.

There is some good here. The girl who plays Pai, Keisha Castle-Hughes is supernaturally cute. And when she cries in her best scene, I dare you not to choke up. She could carry any film on her back. The character of her out-of-favor uncle is also well-done. I wished I could have seen a bit more tribal stuff included. We are never given a sense why a boy is so important and what it means that the bloodline ended with Pai. The coastline of New Zealand looks just as spectacular as it is in your mind. Sunsets, wind, rocky islands. The photography is terrific. The inherent mysticism in whales and ancient tribal stories is well done.

If I had a daughter, I would take her to this, but first I'd take her to BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM, which has an identical message, but aims lower and therefore hits its target more easily.

This film won the audience award at the Toronto, Sundance, San Francisco, and Rotterdam film festivals.

**** Ebert
*** Berardinelli
** LaSalle

7.7 Critical Consensus