I must admit, on this particular day I was dragged to the cinema with no prior knowledge of the characters, plot and had no awareness of the historical basis upon which the film is based. After a minute or so, I realized my partner (a fairly new motorcycle rider himself, making me a motorcycle widow of course) had lured me into a film about motorbikes. I rolled my eyes at him, yawned and prepared for the worst ...
What I got instead was the best film I've seen for quite some time.
Anthony Hopkins totally blew me away. His accent was really very strong (it should be noted that the Invercargil accent is pretty distinct from the rest of the South Island of NZ) and he managed to maintain the audience's interest though some pretty dialogue-heavy scenes. All of the supporting characters did a brilliant job defining a diverse physical and emotional landscape for the protagonist. The cinematography was economical and meaningful and assisted the humorous moments beautifully. The story unfolded very nicely and - thanks to some great editing - the small moments of tension were plentiful and kept the story moving along nicely.
With all the cynicism and politics in contemporary cinema, it is so refreshing to see a film that is very pure, that speaks volumes about kindness and passion and friendship without saying anything at all. This film didn't try to make any big statements, there were no lengthy diatribes about 'acceptance' and 'tolerance', and I loved that.
I left the cinema with a huge grin on my face. I'm so glad I was dragged along for the ride.
