"She was vulnerable and scrutable and likable in ways utterly alien to everyone else. Obviously this sympathetic film has been edited in such a way as to omit most of the hard business of internal politics and to foreground this humanity, although there is one fascinating moment at the very end when her partner Clarke Gayford gently asks if she might be doing too much; with a tiny flash of temper she asks if he is telling her to delegate."
"The world loved her for it. Then when Covid came along, Ardern had not only political skill but what Napoleon famously valued in his generals: she was lucky at first. New Zealand seemed to have been miraculously spared the worst of the outbreak, but then a new wave struck, Ardern's poll numbers dipped and an ugly new far-right anti-vax mob made their encampment outside parliament."
Jacinda Ardern appears as an unusually human and vulnerable political leader, catapulted to power before developing a typical politician’s defensive carapace. Intimate access reveals her scrutability, likability, and a largely unguarded temperament, with one domestic moment showing a brief flash of temper when challenged about delegation. She managed the Christchurch mosque shootings with sincere compassion and used political capital to ban assault rifles. She became the world’s youngest female elected leader and gave birth while in office. Early Covid response combined skill and luck, but later outbreaks eroded support and provoked far-right anti-vaccine protests outside parliament. She endured misogyny yet remained largely unchanged.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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