Alex Casey reviews Holy Days, the new local film starring Miriam Margolyes, Jacki Weaver and Judy Davis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2024 I was invited out to a warehouse in Woolston, Christchurch, where it was snowing in the middle of December. Tonnes upon tonnes of Epsom salts recreated the snowy peaks of Aoraki, as young actor Elijah Tamati traipsed through a manufactured blizzard created by a guy up a ladder wearing an festive Elf T-shirt (it was nearly Christmas, after all). I tried to linger around long enough for the arrival of the film\u2019s high profile international stars \u2013 Miriam Margolyes, Judy Davis and Jacki Weaver \u2013 but was sadly escorted off set before our paths could cross.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As it turns out, I had witnessed what would become one of the big setpiece scenes for Holy Days, an unlikely road trip movie adapted from the Joy Cowley novel of the same name. The feature debut of Nat Boltt, the film follows a trio of nuns journeying to the South Island to retrieve a deed and save their crumbling convent from being sold to developers. Coming along for the ride is Brian, a young M\u0101ori boy struggling with his father\u2019s recoupling after the tragic death of his mother. It is his dream to visit her maunga, Aoraki, to say his final farewell.<\/p>\n
Young actor Elijah Tamati does a remarkable job as Brian, as comfortable being consumed with grief in a confession booth as he is unleashing karate moves to scare a herd of cows off a rural road. Joined by a holy trinity of acting royalty (Davis, Weaver, Margolyes), there\u2019s an ease and warmth between the unlikely travel buddies. Margolyes\u2019 Sister Luke is suitably outrageous, losing dentures and flashing bumcheeks. Weaver\u2019s Sister Mary Claire is the quiet voice of reason. Davis\u2019 Sister Agnes is more the straight-shooting, smoking and drinking type of nun.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Popping up along the way are some notable supporting characters and cameos, including the shambling resident priest played by Johnny Brough, and Brian\u2019s new evil stepmother Liz, played by the film\u2019s writer and director Boltt. Tanea Heke is a standout as Aunty Patricia, Brian\u2019s great-aunty and a former sister of the convent. Conversing in te reo M\u0101ori in her lounge, with land march flyers and Dame Whina Cooper photos dotted in the background, she brings some subtle but much-needed historical and cultural context to the world of the film.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Perhaps because of its gentle, family-friendly leanings, Holy Days often saunters along its cross-country sojourn instead of going for the kind of pedal-to-the-metal chaos and destruction as typical of road movies like Goodbye Pork Pie. Every inconvenience the characters face is solved almost immediately, be it the discovery of a winning betting ticket in the glovebox or a quietly-bribed police officer. At times the dialogue can be strange and obvious, such as when Sister Mary Claire, driving down the beach, says \u201coh goodness, I think I\u2019m on the beach\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The holy trinity in Holy Days.<\/p>\n
The film\u2019s lightness of touch also means the emotional moments don\u2019t always land, like when the nuns discover another Kaikoura convent left to ruin. Maybe I am whatever the religious equivalent of the grinch is, but the plight of the Catholic church\u2019s land-banking efforts doesn\u2019t move me particularly deeply in 2026. And while it is impressive to have a film helmed by three women in their 70s and 80s, it\u2019s hard to ignore another glaring set of optics \u2013 what was really happening in faith-based institutions at this moment in history, especially to young M\u0101ori.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I hope I\u2019ve got it all wrong and a bit of misty-eyed nun-based nostalgia is just what the country needs right now. There\u2019s certainly no denying the impressive efforts of the art department, rendering the road trip in dinky miniature stop motion while also sourcing the perfect rusty dashboard Jesus, all backdropped by stunning South Island vistas. But for a story dabbling in themes of faith, culture, grief and identity, I just wanted more to chew over. Like poor Sister Luke eating lunch without her dentures \u2013 it may appear delicious, but there\u2019s a bit of bite missing.<\/p>\n
Holy Days is in cinemas from today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Casey reviews Holy Days, the new local film starring Miriam Margolyes, Jacki Weaver and Judy Davis.\u00a0 In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[492,156,166677,166678,2895,111,139,69,73268,1066],"class_list":["post-304450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-comments-enabled","tag-entertainment","tag-holy-days","tag-joy-cowley","tag-miriam-margolyes","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-nz-film","tag-pop-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}