While Prime Minister has received a high score of 94% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, some critics were less than impressed with the lack of insight into Ardern\u2019s decision-making and sole focus on empathy and kindness.<\/p>\n
However, co-director Walshe said her purpose for the documentary had always been to take advantage of the unique access they had to intimate footage and showcase what Ardern\u2019s leadership was about.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis film was never a political story to me. Politics was the backdrop of a universal story about leadership and a different look into leadership, what leadership looks like with humanity, empathy, kindness at its core,\u201d Walshe told RNZ\u2019s Culture 101.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you have to lean into what makes you feel something. And any time we got deep into politics or policy, you know, it doesn\u2019t move in terms of a story. And again, perhaps people will tell those later at another time, but I had to make decisions, we had to make decisions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Lindsay Utz (from left), Dame Jacinda Ardern and Michelle Walshe attend the Prime Minister premiere during the 2025 Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2025 in Park City, Utah. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
Although Ardern\u2019s husband Gayford served as producer, Walshe said she and co-director Utz would not have taken on the job if they thought the pair were going to contribute to the decision-making on the output.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, gosh, how is she going to react to seeing herself without makeup and unflattering angles on her bed, you know, speaking in a way that we never hear leaders and politicians in terms of those intimate conversations.<\/p>\n
\u201c[When showing Ardern the Sundance cut], she just said \u2018that seems like an accurate reflection of my time\u2019 and \u2018what a blimmin\u2019 hard watch\u2019.<\/p>\n
Co-director Michelle Walshe says she was worried about how the former Prime Minister would feel about appearing on screen often looking dishevelled and tired. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
\u201cI think her drive to want to humanise, to shine a light on another perspective was so strong that she just parked her own sort of concerns about how she looked or how she came across.\u201d<\/p>\n
Self-described \u201cforever plus-one following along\u201d, Gayford said it was one of the most nerve-wracking moments when it premiered at Sundance.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of those Kiwi insecurities come out but then to win the audience award there in our category was just incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
He told RNZ\u2019s Sunday Morning they went with an American production company for the \u201csole purpose of us not getting too caught in the New Zealand weeds\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted it to be as broad and easier and non-heavy political watch as possible, because we do want it to go far and wider.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walshe said the film needed a broad appeal because she understood Ardern\u2019s impact went beyond New Zealand.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Lindsay brought that really important international perspective. When you\u2019re dealing with literally hundreds of hours of footage, it\u2019s wonderful to sit in the room with somebody who\u2019s come from another viewpoint and say we\u2019re both feeling this, we both feel this is really important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gayford admitted that sometimes he felt like \u201cthe worst partner\u201d when he whipped out his camera and asked how Ardern was feeling after a long, stressful day. But another reason was to show their child, Neve Ardern Gayford, later.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we could\u2019ve made an entire documentary of her shutting me down from pulling a camera out … but I just felt like we should try and capture a little bit of this in case we want to do something with it one day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never, ever felt comfortable [asking], nor particularly good. I needed to channel a bit of [RNZ host] Jim Mora into some of those questions because I never quite felt I could get what I was after.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ardern left the role in 2023, saying she had \u201cnothing left in the tank\u201d and subsequently speaking about the physical and mental toll the job had taken.<\/p>\n
Gayford said she\u2019s happy now and New Zealand will be back on the cards soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI find this slightly odd talking about it, given she\u2019s just downstairs. Just having a little bit of extra free time, she got up this morning and made pancakes with Neve and I heard them getting into some hard-case discussion about the quality of the flour and the wrong something or rather \u2013 and you know just all those lovely moments that I\u2019m privy to here at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s certainly a lot more lighter moments than there used to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clarke Gayford (left) said he wanted to be able to document the behind-the-scenes moments that others wouldn’t be privy to \u2013 in case it would come in use later and to be able to show Neve Ardern Gayford (centre) when she grows up. Photo \/ AFP, Don Emmert<\/p>\n
Since leaving politics, Ardern has spent time in the United States working for Harvard University and is a trustee of Prince William\u2019s Earthshot Prize. She also joined Oxford University\u2019s Blavatnik School of Government as a Distinguished Fellow and member of the World Leaders Circle.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, she also released a \u201cdeeply personal memoir\u201d, A Different Kind of Power, covering her Mormon upbringing, her rise to power in 2017, a cancer scare and navigating crises. She\u2019s also set to release her first children\u2019s book, Mum\u2019s Busy Work, later this month.<\/p>\n
Walshe said it\u2019s a \u201conce-in-a-lifetime\u201d or \u201conce-in-a-generation\u201d film and hoped it will serve as a catalyst for change in people\u2019s lives over time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen else will we have a time where we\u2019ve got a world leader absolutely open to showing themselves in such a vulnerable way through one of the most extraordinary times in modern history, in a short period of time, and their partner happens to be a filmmaker, or at least knows how to operate a camera.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prime Minister screens nationwide from September 25 and will be available on HBO from September 30.<\/b><\/p>\n
\u2013 RNZ<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Prime Minister has received a high score of 94% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, some critics…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[51758,7834,51756,51759,1067,38188,51757,2054,18,117,19,17,1355,7833,5315,520,327,7836,51760,6464],"class_list":{"0":"post-76472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-against","9":"tag-ardern","10":"tag-codirector","11":"tag-criticism","12":"tag-culture","13":"tag-dame","14":"tag-defends","15":"tag-documentary","16":"tag-eire","17":"tag-entertainment","18":"tag-ie","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-it","21":"tag-jacinda","22":"tag-minister","23":"tag-morning","24":"tag-movies","25":"tag-prime","26":"tag-rnzs","27":"tag-sunday"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}