Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Taika Waititi tells us a lot about Ricky Baker in the opening of Hunt for the Wilderpeople without a peep from his mouth. A police car rolls through the hills to a choral musical backing. When he steps out from the vehicle, we get a glimpse of the Illuminati-inspired motto on the jacket back, and the soundtrack acknowledges it with an alien twang. Ricky is spoken for on behalf of welfare officer Paula, who immediately labels him a lost cause in a montage of his criminal activities (the lengthy rap sheet includes throwing rocks, kicking stuff, defacing stuff and lots of other heinous stuff). "He's a real piece of work," she proclaims. Ricky inspects the place quickly, and then wordlessly returns to the police car. This, and other various markers throughout the film, say a lot about how he has been bounced around foster parents all his life. He doesn't even rate himself lasting the day here - might as well get onto the next 'home'.

But this couple do want him. Well, half of them do. In a wonderfully affectionate performance lasting all of twenty minutes, Rima Te Wiata crafts a character of great warmth and wit who seems to be able to do it all; the only thing she's missing is a child to pass it along to. Aunt Bella, like most of Waititi's characters, is a hyper-caricature with a good heart; she's thoughtful enough to leave both a sharp knife to kill monsters in the night as well as a hottie to keep Ricky warm. She relays this through the door because she has an inkling of what a good mother's qualities are, having envisioned this her whole life, and tries to respect his boundaries. Yet she is so excited she peaks around the door anyway, if only to make sure that he hasn't vanished on the spot. In the morning she urges him to at least have breakfast before he runs away. She's at once honest and revealing, and under no illusions of what Ricky has gone through. Her birthday rendition of what has to be a self-written ode to "good as gold" Ricky on a little toy piano is as heartwarming as a big gulp of hot soup on a rainy day. Has Paula ever told Ricky he has value? Has anyone?

But then a thunderclap of a curveball hits them, and the film descends into the well-treaded material promised in the trailer: the formidable team of cantankerous old Hec and the chubby, impressionable Ricky on an adventure for the ages. The story is doled out in chapters unveiled in white, curly text giving the impression of a storybook come to life. Each frame Ricky stumbles across in his oversized hoodies are filled to the brim with character and attitude; see how Waititi overlays several Rickys in the same shot to simulate the fact that he is lost, how he contemplates rationing then scarfs down the rest of his food, or how he manages to start a fire but is not cooking wild game, but trying to heat his hottie. Ricky is one of those twenty-first century children who communicate extensively through their knowledge of pop culture, and like the hazy, dreamlike visions of Michael Jackson in Waititi's Boy, Hunt for the Wilderpeople also freely indulges him. His introduction to the bloodshed of the bush is a thudding Psycho-inspired montage that zooms right up into his squished, horrified face. When he is first called upon to wield a gun to potentially save his uncle, action music pumps into our ears before the recoil unceremoniously drops him. If he was old enough he'd declare himself Clyde and old gruffy Hec Bonnie. What these also reveal is the self-soothing nature of Waititi's characters, and how Ricky has fashioned himself a defense mechanism; he can conjure music at will, and the fact that there's nothing around but sticks and leaves has never stopped him.

Locals will fondly remember Julian from Waititi's anti drug-driving commercial in 2013, which itself took from his short film Two Cars, One Night. Both contemplate the uncanny ability of children being able to apply their own humour and logic to darker and more uncomfortable situations, revealing the flip side of parental negligence. Ricky doesn't even get to have that experience. His dialogue unconsciously reveals the pains of his upbringing, and how he recycles the positive mantras that have been beaten into him: "Okay Debbie Downer, let's write a haiku." Paula's escalation in her attempts to recapture him hint at the self-fulfilling prophecy that she anoints each foster kid. At first he's a real bad egg, but by the climax they're being cornered by tanks and SWAT squadrons as if they were international criminals. It's a stigma that grows exponentially. Her self-stylised motto 'no child left behind' initially seems heartwarming, but becomes more sinister with each iteration; she's not so much concerned with his wellbeing as she is with making sure there is another foster family lined up. Ricky never stood a chance.