Taika Waititi’s “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” shouldn’t work. It’s
the kind of project that’s difficult to describe without making it sound clichéd
and sentimental. It’s another coming-of-age tale, this one of a troubled teenager
finding his place in the world deep in the mountains, with a man who never
thought he’d be a father figure. And yet Waititi’s film defies its
convention through grounded characters, witty dialogue, compassionate
filmmaking and inventive storytelling. “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” is
consistently clever and even moving. It’s proof that we’ll keep listening to the
familiar stories if they’re this well-told.
Teenager Ricky (Julian Dennison) is introduced as “a real
bad egg.” He’s been shuttled around foster homes, getting in trouble for random
juvenile things like loitering and graffiti. His officer, Paula (Rachel House)
takes “No Child Left Behind” as a threat, not a comfort, focusing on Ricky like
a problem that needs to be solved. She’s the kind of authority figure who sets
Ricky up for failure, listing his problems instead of his qualities. And she’s
immediately tonally offset by Ricky’s new mother, Bella (Rima Te Wiata), the
kind of woman who wears sweaters with cat faces on them and hugs with her whole
body. But Bella is no softie. She wins Ricky over by being honest, saying
things like “Have some breakfast … then you can run away.” There’s a telling but
brief exchange (Waititi never hammers or underlines his themes) in which Bella
and Ricky see some wild horses and the young man asks if he can ride them. She
responds, “Why do they need to be ridden anyway? Why can’t they just eat grass
and be happy?” She’s essentially telling Ricky she’ll give him the same
freedom.
Of course, nothing that great lasts and Ricky ends up on the
run for reasons I won’t spoil. Deep in the forest, Ricky plans a life living
off the land with his dog Tupac. He’s tracked and found by Bella’s husband
Hec (Sam Neill), who gets injured, delaying their return to civilization long
enough that the authorities come looking. Hec and Ricky are a traditional
oil-and-water movie duo, physically and emotionally off-set. Ricky writes
haikus. Hec hunts. And the two become famous, all over national news and
tracked by the incompetent Paula. “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” becomes a road movie
with no road, a film about two people who may seem entirely different but have
both been discarded by society.
Waititi’s film never judges its characters. Ricky isn’t a “bad
egg” or a “dumb kid.” The film finds joy in scenes like the one in which he
creates a fake Walkman and dances to the music in his head. It’s essential to
the film’s success that Ricky’s not just the bumbling idiot he could have
been in another filmmaker’s hands. We feel honest affection for Ricky. And the same
holds true for Hec, whom Waititi and Neill could have turned into a grizzled
jerk. Dennison, Waititi and Neill find depth within the characters, as small moments become the foundation for the film’s emotion. They don’t play the
coming-of-age arc, they play the reality of each scene. It may sound obvious,
but so many films like “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” try to play the emotion instead of grounding it
in character.
It helps to have a compassionate and humane filmmaker in the
director’s chair. The man behind “Boy” and “What We Do in the Shadows” not only
knows how hit a comedy beat with perfect timing, but he knows the rhythm a
piece like this needs to work. With a fantastic editing team (there’s a
sequence set to Nina Simone’s “Sinnerman,” of all things, that is perfectly conceived and
executed), he breaks “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” up into chapters, making it feel almost like a
memory or the story that an adult Ricky is telling his kids later in life. It
almost approaches fairy tale mythology, especially the surprisingly action-packed
finale, one in which we honestly care about the fate of our two protagonists.
So much of “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” looks easy. It’s not
until one considers the number of places it could have gone awry that one truly
appreciates it. There are so many minor beats that produce laughs and major
moments that create surprising emotion. There’s a great scene halfway through
in which Hec and Ricky are high enough in the mountains that they can almost
touch the sky and Hec calls it “majestical.” It’s not a real word, but we know
what it means. It’s the meaning that matters in “Hunt for the Wilderpeople.” It’s a downright majestical movie.
