The Justice of Bunny King

Essie Davis stars as a mother-of-two who, trapped on the outside of New Zealand society, fights back with a vengeance.

Looking on the outside in: Essie Davis

Bunny King is an unknown quantity. We first spot her cleaning car windscreens at a traffic intersection in Auckland. She seems surprisingly upbeat under the circumstances. Then, as her story comes into focus, the layers of her character are gradually, ever so gingerly peeled away. It is soon apparent that Bunny is homeless, is a product of the underbelly of New Zealand, a woman forced into a bureaucratic cage because she doesn’t quite fit. She is highly moral, passionate, generous, unpredictable and enormously loving. She is also the mother of two children, one a brain-damaged five-year-old (Amelie Baynes), the other a 14-year-old boy (Angus Stevens), neither of whom she is allowed access to. However, before she can even hope to look after them – and get permission to do so – she must first find somewhere to live. Which, when you are locked on the outside of society, is not so easy. But Bunny will do anything to be close to her kids again. Then she is witness to a wrongdoing which her principles cannot ignore, even at the expense of her own maternal quest…

Gaysorn Thavat’s debut feature has two overriding assets. One, an ambivalence that keeps the viewer guessing, both as to the judgement of its protagonist and to what she thinks she is witness to. The other is the performance of Essie Davis, one of the finest Australian actresses of her generation (and that is saying a lot). American and British audiences will know her from The Babadook (2014) – as the haunted mother – and as Lady Crane in Game of Thrones, although she has also turned in strong supporting performances in Babyteeth (2019) and True History of the Kelly Gang (2019). Yet she remains almost a national secret. Maybe The Justice of Bunny King could change all that.

Bunny King is, like so many, a victim of the box-ticking, digitalised culture that has become the norm. Her humanity has become secondary to the forms that have to be filled, the algorithmic regulations to be followed. But Bunny does not so much break the rules as turn them inside out and then trample on them. And the harder the authorities push her down, the harder she pushes back. Gaysorn Thavat, who previously worked as a focus puller, has the good sense to allow Davis’s performance to steer the ship, to power the motor of her film. There’s also an effective, underplayed turn from Thomasin McKenzie as Bunny’s niece, the latter now the biggest New Zealand star this side of Anna Paquin. Opting for a naturalistic, handheld camera style, Thavat builds a sense of immediacy, as the narrative strands draw the viewer in, albeit towards a more generic outcome. But the film’s emotional buttons are efficiently engaged and the moments of heartbreak well earned.

JAMES CAMERON-WILSON

Cast: Essie Davis, Thomasin McKenzie, Lively Nili, Bridie Sisson, Semu Filipo, Harry Adams, Kiri Naik, Angus Stevens, Amelie Baynes, Xana Tang, Max Crosby, Penny Crosby, Darien Tackle, Erroll Shand, Toni Potter, Phil Peleton. 

Dir Gaysorn Thavat, Pro Emma Slade, Screenplay Sophie Henderson, Ph Ginny Loane, Pro Des Rosie Guthrie, Ed Cushla Dillon, Music Karl Steven, Costumes Kirsty Cameron, Sound Bruno Barrett-Garnier. 

FilmRise/Firefly Films/Madman Entertainment/New Zealand Film Commission-Vertigo Releasing.
101 mins. New Zealand. 2020. UK Rel: 11 February 2022. Available to rent on BFI Player and other streaming platforms. Cert. 15.