Julian Dennison and Sam Neill make this wilderness comedy funny and unexpectedly moving. Taika Waititi occasionally fusses over the quirks, but the friendship is persuasive enough to earn the film’s considerable sweetness.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople is a warmly funny adventure that earns its sentiment, even when Taika Waititi makes too much fuss over a joke. Its chief pleasure is the company of Ricky, a troubled foster child, and Hec, the bushman who becomes his reluctant companion. Their flight into the New Zealand wilderness gives a familiar mismatched pair plenty of opportunities to irritate each other. The film lets that irritation remain part of their relationship, rather than tidying it away once affection becomes possible.
Julian Dennison understands how funny a child can be when he takes himself more seriously than the adults do. He gives Ricky enough self-importance to be annoying, and enough uncertainty to make that annoyance bearable. The performance never asks us to pretend that looking after this boy would be straightforward. We laughed at Ricky’s persistence with the unresponsive Hec, then felt protective of him; Julian Dennison makes the need for company painfully clear.
Sam Neill gives that persistence something solid to push against. His irritation has enough weight that the exchanges do not become a routine in which a lovable child improves an obligingly grumpy adult. Hec can be difficult without the performance continually reassuring us that he means well underneath. That restraint matters, because the film’s broader comedy supplies plenty of encouragement to like everybody, and this particular friendship needs some resistance if it is going to persuade us.
Lachlan Milne’s cinematography makes the bush feel like somewhere worth getting lost in, although its appeal also softens the danger. The wilderness can seem rather hospitable for a survival adventure, and the practical difficulty of staying alive never weighs heavily enough. Neville Stevenson’s production design supports the storybook mood without competing with the landscape for attention. The surroundings suit the comic exaggeration, but anyone hoping for an arduous account of life outdoors may find the whole excursion too comfortable.
The chapter divisions give the adventure a pleasingly episodic shape. Editors Yana Gorskaya, Tom Eagles and Luke Haigh keep it moving without sacrificing the exchanges that make the central pairing worth following. The music by Conrad Wedde, Lukasz Pawel Buda and Samuel Scott encourages the playful mood, though its enthusiasm sometimes makes the sweetness feel over-insisted upon. The film works more comfortably when the humour allows a little awkwardness to linger. It does not always need another nudge towards delight.
Taika Waititi’s weaker moments come when a comic detour seems to interest him more than the people taking it. Some supporting characters arrive with their eccentricity too prominently advertised, and the plotting occasionally moves the companions along with suspicious convenience. These are interruptions rather than lasting damage, but they make the adventure feel more carefully arranged than its scruffy participants suggest. Within the familiar child-and-reluctant-guardian story, the two leads provide enough interest without quite so much decorative oddness.
The film runs 101 minutes and has the good sense not to exhaust the central pairing. Choose it for a shared evening, especially if one person claims not to like sentimental films. There is enough bad temper here to give them something else to talk about.
