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Tina review — a tested format lifted with warmth

Samoan-born Miki Magasiva’s bittersweet debut follows a grieving teacher and a ragtag choir on a redemptive journey.

Anapela Polataivao as Mareta in Tina
Anapela Polataivao as Mareta in Tina

Tina (M)

124 minutes

In cinemas

★★★½

The New Zealand drama Tina is full of beautiful moments. When Samoan New Zealander Mareta (Samoan-born Anapela Polataivao) visits an elite private school in Christchurch she spots a student struggling to play the piano in a courtyard.

She sits next to her, takes over the keys and tells her to sing. Sophie (impressive newcomer Antonia Robinson) starts with uncertainty but then powerfully sings the 1986 Crowded House hit ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over.’

That song is an anthem for this bittersweet movie written and directed by Samoan-born Miki Magasiva in his feature debut. It’s a story of underdogs and dreams that follows a similar songbook to School of Rock (2003), starring Jack Black, or, closer to NZ, Taika Waititi’s Next Goal Wins (2023).

We first meet Mareta three years earlier when she is teaching at a low-income school in the Christchurch suburb of Aranui. Her teenage daughter is about to do an audition at a recording studio in Christchurch. She calls her mum (Tina means mother in Samoan) and the two warm-up together over the phone.

It’s another beautiful scene but it ends in tragedy. It’s 2011. The Christchurch earthquake hits and the daughter is killed. Mareta is not there because she didn’t want to leave her students. “The way I see it every teacher is already a parent.”

Three years on Mareta is sad and angry. The star, who is an actor, writer and director, has such an expressive face. Her bottled up emotions are there to see. There are also much-needed touches of humour, such as when she goes to the welfare office to complain and the beefy security guard hides from her.

Anapela Polataivao as Mareta in Tina. Picture: Madman Entertainment
Anapela Polataivao as Mareta in Tina. Picture: Madman Entertainment

She is persuaded to join the private school as a substitute teacher. Unlike her previous job, most of the students are white and privileged. She is the first Polynesian to teach there. “Everyone here is rich and spoiled,’’ says the captain of the rubgy team, Anthony (Zac O’Meagher), who will become a central character. Why, then, are they underdogs? Because Mareta decides to start a school choir, much to the displeasure of the deputy headmaster (Jamie Irvine), who is a great white, well, to use Mareta’s word, wanker. Rugger bugger also comes to mind.

And while the students are white and wealthy, they have their own problems. Sophie has deep scars on her left hand and is on medication. Anthony isn’t sure he wants to play rugby and joins the choir, dividing his time between the two teams.

“A choir cannot work alone,’’ Mareta tells the students. “You need each other.”

Mareta has her own secret, one she keeps to herself. She enters the choir in a national competition. The preparation for this Big Sing has its ups and downs, its fallings out, its tests of faith but the dream does not die. The humour, too, remains in place. A brawl between the choir and the rugby team is a highlight.

Picture: Madman Entertainment
Picture: Madman Entertainment

All of the young actors playing the students are terrific, especially Robinson as Sophie. The main weakness is the deputy headmaster, who comes across as a caricature of white superiority. A more nuanced character would serve the story better.

This movie doesn’t rewrite the much-used plot line of young people fighting the odds with the help of a renegade adult but it brings its own warmth and compassion to it. You will want the choir to sing like angels.

“What’s to know?” Mareta tells Sophie when she says she doesn’t know anything about being in a choir. “You just open your mouth and sing.”

As this impressive directorial debut shows, it isn’t quite that easy.

Stephen Romei
Stephen RomeiFilm Critic

Stephen Romei writes on books and films. He was formerly literary editor at The Australian and The Weekend Australian.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/tina-review-a-tested-format-lifted-with-warmth/news-story/441d75fd0a6e22e00622415af7e1b3b0