Pretty standard kiwi film - not really noteworthy

Rating: 6/10 (5 February 2020)

If you are from NZ, you'd know this type of film pretty well. It's period acting/tone is very loose, modern. It's comedy is primarily goofy. But it shifts between that and some fairly overt messaging that is safe, politically correct and otherwise fairly bland. It lands it's drama well enough, but it's somehow immature, one dimensional at the same time.
It's extremely typical of NZ films to pitch between comedy and drama, although they tend to be at times darker than Aussie films.
One could throw a dart at a board of Kiwi films, and 50/50 you'd hit something quite like this, outside of the bigger name actors and production value, it's quite missable. Honestly this film got a great deal of praise - I saw it, and I was just like, oh, it's another one of those - you film critics been asleep?