TINĀ

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Storyline (warning: spoilers)

Mareta Percival is the first Polynesian teacher to work at St Francis Assisi, an elite Christchurch private school, and its deputy head does not approve, which doesn’t bother Mareta at all. Stout in every sense of the word, she proudly declares her Samoan identity with the boldly patterned dresses she wears to school. She forms a school choir and coaxes its slightly bemused teenage members into learning Samoan songs with the aim of competing in a national contest.
Mareta comes to the school in the wake of tragedy. After the death of her daughter, a talented singer on the verge of a big career, she gives up teaching music to disadvantaged Polynesian children and hibernates. It’s only when she’s on the brink of losing her welfare payments that she agrees to apply for a job. It would be wrong to characterise her as an underdog. She’s hit bottom with her daughter’s death and the knowledge that she has nothing more to lose is all the armour she needs. She wastes no words and makes no concessions whether she’s talking to the kids or her increasingly smarmy antagonist, Mr Wadsworth.
Her best friend, Rona, who worked with her when she was teaching Samoan kids, can’t understand why she’s abandoned them for white teens who want for nothing. Mareta has already discovered the flaws in that assumption. The kids she’s teaching are having to deal with the usual assortment of adolescent anxieties – from the unreasonable demands of their overbearing parents to the torments inflicted by the school bullies. And Sophie, the most gifted of them all, has depression – a hangover from a trauma we will learn about as time goes on.
Nonetheless, there is room for laughter as the kids become familiar with Mareta’s habit of saying exactly what she thinks. Her refusal to be intimidated is unshakeable. In fact, taunting the stitched-up school board with her unorthodox teaching methods and her terse one-liners could well be her favourite pastime. The film’s not going to surprise you by taking off into uncharted narrative territory but it’s the kind of tear-jerker which never loses touch with reality.