Mad Times

Whale Rider

In every generation there is a Chosen One... Oops, wait, wrong story. In a Maori tribe in New Zealand, there's a patriarchal transferrence of power, but as the tribe's traditional culture collides with the modern world, the sons of the chief choose other paths than those of tradition. The chief tries to train the other young boys of the tribe into the position. He can't accept that his granddaughter is his clear successor. She trains behind his back and everything ends about like you'd expect. It's really a fairy tale story so you can excuse the fact that the plot seems derivative. It's derivative because it tells one of the stories that all the others derive from. What really makes the movie wonderful, though is the performance of first-time actress Keisha Castle-Hughes as the granddaughter. She's wonderfully natural as a girl called to lead her people. Beautiful magical movie.