Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Opens July 15 at Tampa Theater and July 22 at the Muvico Sundial 19 in St. Petersburg.
Director Taika Waititi's last film, the offbeat (some might say bizarre) vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows was both the funniest movie of 2015 and a fully realized vision so quirky it could only come from a place like New Zealand. His next film — the currently in-production Thor: Ragnarok, slated for a November 2017 release — will mark his debut as a purveyor of big-time Hollywood action blockbusters.
With that in mind, perhaps it's appropriate to consider his newest offering, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, something of a transitional piece. Much more sentimental than his earlier effort and gorgeously shot against the backdrop of the breathtakingly beautiful Kiwi landscape, Wilderpeople follows a mostly conventional narrative and deploys the "gruff old man with chubby misfit kid" formula previously used to great effect in films like Bad Santa" and Pixar's Up. At the same time, Waititi imbues the story of 13-year-old juvenile delinquent Ricky (Julian Dennison) and his reluctant guardian Hec (Sam Neil, in his finest role in years) with enough offbeat charm and unexpected twists to avoid what easily could have been rendered saccharine dross in less-skilled hands.
Ricky is, in the words of his case worker Paula (Rachel House), "a bad egg," who is given to "stealing, spitting, throwing rocks, kicking stuff and defacing stuff." He's also a sensitive and introspective author of haikus, who longs to escape from the foster system to the land of "Rickyville…population: Ricky." When first we meet him, he's being deposited by social-services workers in the care of badass and loving foster mom Bella (Rima Te Wiata), who writes songs for him, teaches him to slay a boar and gives him a pit bull whom Ricky names "Tupac."
Director Taika Waititi, on the set of "Hunt for the Wilderpeople"
PIKI FILMS
Alas, this potentially happy ending is derailed by the end of the first act, as Bella dies of a sudden heart attack. Ricky is left with the grizzled and illiterate Hec, her husband, who never really wanted the child in the first place. Facing the prospect of being shipped off to juvenile detention, Ricky and Tupac run away into the New Zealand bush, but Hec quickly catches up with them. Concluding that Hec is actually guilty of abduction and quite likely a “molester,” Paula launches what soon becomes a nationwide manhunt for the feral pair that gives the film its title.
The somewhat shaggy narrative that follows, adapted from New Zealand author Barry Crump's book Wild Pork and Watercress, alternates between absurdist humor and genuinely poignant moments, as when Ricky reflects on the fate of a friend who died in the foster system, though none of the adults in his world bothered to explain to him how or why. The two encounter a host of other characters along the journey – including a welcome cameo from of Rhys Darby of Flight of the Conchords — as the hunt builds toward what feels at times like it could be a Thelma & Louise-style climax.
What carries it throughout is the crackling chemistry between Neil and Dennison. They may be "wilderpeople," but they're still people — two very different characters, each burnt and scarred by the vicissitudes of life, but each also compelled to reach out, in their own ways, to make a connection.
This article appears in Jul 7-14, 2016.