The People We Love

Maddie is a 20-something writer. But her editor has rejected her latest stories and she has just found out her boyfriend is planning on cheating on her with her best friend. Understandably, Maddie wants to get the hell out of town for a few days. She takes the now ex's car and heads to the Kapiti Coast, where Mum and Dad live. But Maddie has only been there for a day, when she finds out her first-love Tai is now her dad's workmate. And that Mum Harriet is having an affair - or teetering right on the edge of one - with a woman she met at work.

The People We Love is a first feature from director Mike Smith. Smith has been making some very good TV shows and films for many years, including the award-winning Siege, Mistress Mercy and episodes of Vegas and The Brokenwood Mysteries. He knows how to shoot a script and tell a story as well as anyone I know.

The People We Love is a good yarn, but it never digs into any of the darker recesses the plot might be hinting at. The potentially thorny question of why Harriet wanted to leave Craig is not really addressed, and the more perplexing one of why she chooses to return is also left mostly unanswered. The family simply celebrate over a quick barbecue and move on. Which I guess it at least an authentically Kiwi response.

The People We Love might be light and mostly frictionless, but Smith has assembled a cracker cast to help him tell it. Manon Blackman (800 Words) is fine as Maddie and Neill Rea plays Craig with a lot of the same shambling likeability he brings to Brokenwood.

Tane Rolfe is good as new-old love Tai, and Richard Chapman earns a few laughs as a stoner uncle, living in a caravan in the driveway, who turns up in the spaces where a few of us might have liked more of the drama to have been.

The stand-out here is Alison Bruce as Harriet. Bruce gets through a lot of work in the white spaces between the dialogue, reacting in tiny but telling ways, while Maddie and Craig talk around and at her, and she quietly makes Harriet into an empathetic character who - as mothers do - unobtrusively supports and carries her noisier dependants along with her.

Also well worth mentioning, Mathew Knight's cinematography loves those gorgeous Kapiti coast lines and makes Wellington's Aro and Cuba streets look like terrific places to get a drink or have a yarn. Which they are.

The People We Love is a nice way to spend a bit of time. It looks great, and there's a few laughs here. Go and have a look.

The writing was poorly surpassed by the awful acting of the lead protaginist, Manon Blackman. Her mother was clearly the only serious actor but even she couldn't save this godawful waste of 90 minutes.

Poor writing, poor acting, the plot meanders aimlessly along. Several scenarios are just so implausible. It beggars belief.

It was hard to like any of the characters. The love story is poorly supported by the most awful script and the two young actors show no chemistry.

It was a real stretch to think anyone could become a successful writer based on such shallowness and superficial lives. Avoid watching at all costs.