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Whale Rider
Official Toronto Film Festival Website
B.Ruby Rich Review

The whales are listening. On the east coast of New Zealand, the Whangara people – or Whangara iwi – believe their presence there dates back a thousand years or more to a single ancestor, Paikea, who escaped death when his canoe capsized by riding to shore on the back of a whale. From then on, Whangara chiefs – always the first-born, always male – have been considered Paikea’s direct descendants. Maori writer Witi Ihimaera was living in New York City in 1986 when a whale became trapped in the Hudson River. Like a wake-up call, the incident flashed him back to the whale legends of his childhood. What would happen if a girl tried to enter the pantheon of leaders?

That’s the question that drives Niki Caro’s luminous adaptation. In a wrenching opening scene, a young mother and the male of her newborn twins die in childbirth. Her young husband flees New Zealand in grief, leaving grandparents Koro and Nanny Flowers to raise the sole survivor, a feisty little girl named Pai. This captivating child radiates life energy, and with first-time actor Keisha Castle-Hughes in the role, she’s absolutely charismatic. It’s no wonder that her grandmother and the entire community love her, but alas, the grandfather she worships is too busy mourning the loss of the baby boy he expected would lead the tribe to better days.

Whale Rider’s ultimately uplifting narrative is devoid of any false note or saccharine shine. With striking landscapes and authentic performances from both people and whales, Caro manages to improve upon magic realism by offering realistic magic instead. With Castle-Hughes emitting a magnetic glow as Pai, everything is believable. Save the whales? That’s not enough: let the whales save us. Whale Rider is an exceptional coming-of-age fable that never cheats its audience, allowing viewers of all ages to rediscover innocence and wisdom, free of cynicism and doubt. Who decided the gods dwelled in the heavens and not in the seas, anyway?