Prime Minister (now streaming on HBO Max) is an anomaly: an intimate, relatively unvarnished portrait of a major world leader. And a groundbreaking documentary deserves a groundbreaking subject in Jacinda Ardern, who in 2017 became the world’s youngest government leader at 37, winning the Prime Minister seat of New Zealand – then she became only the second woman to give birth while holding such a high office, subsequently being the first to bring a baby to the United Nations. Directed by Lindsay Utz and Michelle Walshe, the film follows Ardern for roughly five years, from her election to her 2023 resignation, observing as she faces significant criticism and contends with crises, including the terrorist attack at a Christchurch mosque and the protracted Covid pandemic. The doc opens itself to criticism for its narrow point-of-view – it rarely looks anywhere but over Ardern’s shoulder – but it’s nevertheless a fascinating glimpse into the life of a high-profile politician.
The Gist: There’s a moment in Prime Minister when you may want to shout at the screen and warn Ardern of a pending calamity: The carpet in her home is strewn with colorful toys – she has a toddler, so of course it is – and she seems to be in danger of stepping on a Lego brick. Regardless of whether or not you subscribe to her progressive Labour Party positions, people of all political stripes can agree that no one, and I mean no one, deserves to feel such excruciating pain. Such footage is courtesy of Ardern’s then-fiancee Clarke Gayford, who consistently shot video of her, and asked her probing questions on camera, then allowed Utz and Walshe to use his footage for this film. Somehow, and despite Ardern’s subsequent admission that she was often a reluctant participant in such filming, she and Gayford would remain together, and it perhaps says something about the nature of love that Ardern would allow Gayford to stick a camera in her Prime-Minister-of-New-Zealand face first thing in the morning, and she didn’t dump him like a load of refuse.
And so much of Prime Minister consists of Gayford’s footage, interwoven with some archival clips and more recent moments captured by Utz and Walshe, who use excerpts of Ardern’s National Library of New Zealand audio diaries to prompt her reflections. Ardern was once reluctant to pursue the Prime Minister seat, but changed her tune after polling leading up to the 2017 election prompted her to replace the Labour Party’s candidate. There were only seven weeks until the election – and rather improbably, she won. She promptly got to work addressing climate change, child poverty, education and mental health issues, and then got pregnant. “It’s very jarring, turning your pregnancy into a press statement,” she tells Gayford’s camera. People had capital-O Opinions about that, asserting that she can’t do justice to both motherhood and being the country’s leader; meanwhile, she does her damnedest to fit breastfeeding into her schedule, with rocky results.
We get brief snippets of Ardern’s biography – her interest in politics bloomed as a teenager, she gave a speech to the New Zealand Parliament in 2008, she studies history for knowledge and guidance – as she works through motherhood and follows her compassionate instincts as Prime Minister. In one revealing moment, a group of Maori women outfit her with a handcrafted ceremonial cloak “to protect her from slings and arrows,” and tears well up in her eyes as they place it on her shoulders and embrace her; her wearing of the cloak is one of the film’s visual motifs. She works through the grief of the Christchurch shooting and gathers support to pass a bill banning assault weapons. When Covid hits, she promptly closes the country’s borders and reduces cases to zero, and rides that to a landslide re-election – only to see a variant of the virus bloom in New Zealand in 2022, prompting further lockdowns and protests outside her office that include Trump flags, verbal abuse and, eventually, violence and destruction of civic property. The stress and political division prompted her to resign in 2023. Her voice cracks as she shares how she wanted to “save people’s lives and keep everyone together,” but laments that she failed to do the latter.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Prime Minister is similar in its inside-politics approach to memorable Anthony Weiner scandal-doc Weiner and James Carville bio Carville: Winning is Everything, Stupid!
Performance Worth Watching: It’s not a “performance” per se, but Ardern’s daughter Neve is functions as a de-facto symbol of the future, one hopeful for less troubling times ahead.
Memorable Dialogue: After the Christchurch shooting, authorities upset survivors of Muslim victims by not allowing swift burials due to ongoing investigations. Ardern shares her plan to address the grieving families: “Tell people what you know,” she says gravely. “Even if it’s hard.”
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: Obviously, Prime Minister presents only one point-of-view, which some will see as a ding against it, considering its narrative exists in a political sphere. Utz and Walshe don’t bother to present opposing viewpoints, or even outside voices – there are no talking heads in the film – preferring to lean into the intimacy of their portrait. It’s unnecessary to illustrate the contrarian nature of politics, and the depth of current divisiveness is self-evident in the images of protesters hurling epithets at Ardren, her family and her staff, protesters that she eventually forced off government grounds by using riot police. This latter point is illustrated but not explained, and that’s where the film’s bias shows; it’s more about what the documentary chooses to omit, e.g., how Ardren’s approval ratings had slipped significantly prior to her resignation. The point is at least implied, and the film’s emphasis is less on statistics and hard facts, more on broader ideals of compassion and kindness, which, Ardren shares, are at the root of her governing philosophy.
So we don’t see much detail as to the ins and outs of governing (a day-in-the-life montage might’ve worked well here) and it takes a quick internet search to learn that moments filmed in Boston in 2024 are the result of Ardern’s current fellowship at Harvard. The film instead leans into Ardern’s internal conflict, as much as she’s willing to share it. What she does reveal seems significant, and more earnest than performative. The arc of the doc shows how the job of a world leader wears on the human soul, whether its her physical inability to breastfeed (in one heartbreaking moment, she says to her infant daughter that she’s just “not getting much” from her mother), or the impact Covid and its subsequent protests had on her mental health (her constant anxiety affected her ability to sleep and feel rested).
The stress of the loud criticism literally right outside her window wears down her upbeat tone into something more weary, but never quite cynical. She stands by the decisions she made, but that doesn’t mean they don’t weigh heavy on her. Certainly, the footage has been shaped to be sympathetic, but as presented, her anguish and struggle are relatable and realistic. At times, Gayford challenges Ardern on camera, which is fascinating; politicians so rarely let their guard down, or allow themselves to be vulnerable. The film’s depiction of a Prime Minister who ultimately set aside the allure of power and control for the sake of her sanity and family – and the film is as much a portrait of a mother as it is of a politician. I can’t see this happening with an American politician, especially in the current climate, but it wouldn’t be a bad thing if it did.
Our Call: Prime Minister isn’t quite warts-and-all – we’d be silly to expect it to be – but as a glimpse into the interior life of a high-profile pol, it’s compelling. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.