Rena Owen's Beth Heke in Once Were Warriors is reason enough to watch a difficult film. She makes the effort of keeping a family together compelling, without suggesting that strength makes the harm any easier to bear.
Fi1m perspective
Beth Heke is trying to keep her family together, and Rena Owen makes us understand why she cannot simply stop trying. In Lee Tamahori's Once Were Warriors (1994), her fierceness never suggests that she can withstand anything. We were horrified by the violence against her because Owen had made the effort of holding the household together matter so much. It is a performance that deserves the attention the film demands.
That breakthrough leading role remains the clearest reason for our regard. The work that followed includes Rix in Dance Me to My Song (1998), then the voice of Taun We in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002). Her television work includes the recurring role of Heveena in The Orville (2017). Whina (2022) continued her work in New Zealand productions, within a career that has taken her into international film, television and voice work.
The quality worth looking for is what Owen does with a woman who might otherwise be reduced to her capacity for suffering. Riwia Brown's screenplay gives Beth reasons to persist, and Owen makes those reasons felt without asking us to welcome further punishment. Opposite Temuera Morrison's frighteningly physical Jake, she keeps our attention from settling entirely on the man doing the damage. We can admire Beth and still want her spared the task of holding everyone together.
She also gives us grounds to question the direction around her. Michael Horton's tight editing allows little relief, while Murray Grindlay and Murray McNabb's music maintains the pressure. Those choices serve Tamahori's forceful approach, but the accumulation of misery can feel too deliberately arranged. We occasionally wish the film would leave more to Owen, who supplies enough urgency without the additional insistence.
We would welcome more leading parts that give her comparable complexity. Casting her merely to look resilient would miss what makes Beth compelling: the effort, the attachment to her family and the damage she cannot brush aside. Start with Once Were Warriors, but take the warning about its domestic violence seriously.
Biography
Rena Owen is a New Zealand actress working in film, theatre and television. Born Maria Makarena Owen on 22 July 1962 in the Bay of Islands, she is of Māori and Pākehā descent. She trained as a nurse before moving to London in the mid-1980s, where she studied at the Actors Institute and began working in British theatre.
Owen is known for her leading role as Beth Heke in Once Were Warriors (1994). The performance brought international awards including Best Actress at the Montreal World Film Festival and the San Diego International Film Festival. She later appeared as Taun We in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005), and as Nee Alavar in the latter. Other credits include A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) and Dance Me to My Song (1998), for which she received an AFI Best Supporting Actress nomination.
