Prime Minister: An Intimate Portrait of Leadership in Crisis
In an era of performative politics and manufactured personas, Michelle Walshe and Lindsay Utz's Prime Minister offers something revolutionary: a leader being genuinely human on camera. This Audience Award-winning documentary follows Jacinda Ardern through her tumultuous five-year tenure as New Zealand's Prime Minister, and it's the kind of political intimacy that makes you remember what authentic leadership actually looks like.
The film's secret weapon is unprecedented access, largely thanks to Ardern's partner Clarke Gayford, whose home footage provides the documentary's most affecting moments. We see the Prime Minister feeding her infant daughter between crisis management meetings, crying in her car after violent protests, and wrestling with the impossible weight of decisions that affect millions. When Ardern quotes her childhood hero Ernest Shackleton – "Optimism is true moral courage" – it doesn't feel like political theater. It feels like a woman drawing from whatever reserves of strength she has left.
Walshe and Utz structure the film around the defining crises of Ardern's leadership: the 2019 Christchurch mosque shooting, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the volcanic eruption at White Island. But rather than focusing solely on policy responses, they examine the emotional toll of leadership during unprecedented times. The footage of Ardern immediately after Christchurch – her face reflecting the nation's grief while maintaining the composure necessary to lead – captures something rarely seen in political documentaries: the cost of caring.
The film's treatment of Ardern's resignation is particularly nuanced. Rather than presenting it as defeat, Prime Minister frames her departure as a final act of integrity from someone who recognized her own limitations. "I no longer have enough in the tank," she says, and the honesty is both heartbreaking and refreshing in a political landscape dominated by leaders who cling to power regardless of competence.
Critics may argue the film veers toward hagiography, but that misses the point. Prime Minister isn't trying to canonize Ardern – it's documenting what leadership rooted in empathy and authenticity actually looks like. In our current moment, that feels less like propaganda and more like a roadmap. The standing ovations at Sundance weren't just for Ardern; they were for the possibility that politics can still be about service rather than spectacle.