‘Prime Minister’ Review: Documentary About New Zealand’s Galvanizing Former Leader Offers an Intimate Look at a Woman in Power

Directors Lindsay Utz and Michelle Walshe provide a window into Jacinda Ardern's work and life choices during her five-year term as her country's head of government.

The word kindness comes up over and over in Prime Minister as the key to Jacinda Ardern‘s political philosophy. That sounds gooey and naive, but this disarming and intimate documentary about her six years as New Zealand’s head of government shows it to be the effective basis for a career that made her a global political star. 

Ardern’s tenure included some head-spinning turns. She was 37 when the leader of the Labour party stepped down and she took over, becoming Prime Minister just seven weeks later. Around that time, she also learned that she was pregnant. She gained worldwide attention and praise for her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and a shooting at a Christchurch mosque that killed 51 people, and she put progressive programs into place, including serious gun control laws.