All of those mum-based complexities, joys and pains continue to spread their wings in Caterpillar, the sublime debut feature written and directed by Chelsie Preston Crayford. Set in P\u014dneke in 2003, the film is centred around a household of three generations of women. Cassie (Anais Shand) is the teenager struggling to find herself amid Shakespeare and house parties, Maxine (Marta Dusseldorp) is juggling life as a single parent and dogged filmmaker, and Huia (Lisa Harrow) is the grandmother secretly navigating the devastating onset of dementia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Caterpillar will lure you in with its initial lightness of touch, including Cassie\u2019s absurd Mr-G-meets-David-Brent Shakespeare tutor Cam (Matt Whelan) and Maxine\u2019s melodramatic pitch to a baffled bank teller (\u201cIf I don\u2019t make films, I start to die\u201d). But just like Cam\u2019s array of capri pants, this film contains multitudes. As the building blocks of their lives start to shift, all three women are forced to confront their changing roles in relation to the world, and each other. \u201cIt\u2019s funny how you can feel like a superhero at work and complete shit at home,\u201d says Maxine.<\/p>\n
The three leads navigating these rich characters are nothing short of remarkable. Shand\u2019s sassy Cassie expertly captures the wafer-thin bravado of adolescence, cracking the veneer just enough to reveal a girl still figuring out who she is. As Maxine, Dusseldorp is a force of nature in the boardroom, but falls to pieces in her own kitchen. \u201cI thought I\u2019d cook,\u201d she suggests nonchalantly. \u201c\u2026What would you cook if you were cooking?\u201d Balancing them out is the serene calm and childlike wonder of Lisa Harrow\u2019s Huia, quietly fighting the biggest battle of them all.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anais Shand and Lisa Harrow in Caterpillar.<\/p>\n
Adding to the authenticity of the performances is the extremely realistic rendering of 2003 suburban Wellington. Particularly for those who came of age in the mid-2000s, Cassie\u2019s bedroom littered with stacks of CDs, Britney Spears posters and Real Groovy stickers will feel all too real. The soundtrack too is packed with Y2K treats such as Stellar*\u2019s \u2018Violent\u2019 and Zed\u2019s \u2018Renegade Fighter\u2019, but it\u2019s a party scene opening with Savage\u2019s verse in the \u2018Not Many\u2019 remix and ending with Concord Dawn\u2019s \u2018Morning Light\u2019 which delivers millennial chills like no other.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There\u2019s so many other scenes in Caterpillar that will stick with you long after the credits have rolled and\/or you\u2019ve finally stopped crying. Unapologetically domestic in its scope, this is a love letter to mothers, daughters and the messy, complex space between them. As fictional actress Catherine Berry says of Maxine\u2019s own film-within-the-film, it\u2019s about \u201cthe bigness of small things\u201d. In our current hellscape dominated by conflict, violence and the manosphere, watching something so tender and nuanced about women\u2019s lives feels like coming up for air.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And for those of us still lucky enough to have them around, a warning: you will leave the cinema wanting to call your mum.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Caterpillar is in cinemas nationwide now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Casey reviews the new local multi-generational drama written and directed by Chelsie Preston Crayford.\u00a0 There\u2019s something going…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[34216,219337,156,111,219338,139,69,73268,1066],"class_list":["post-427772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-caterpillar","tag-chelsie-preston-crayford","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand-film","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-nz-film","tag-pop-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427772","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=427772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}