Shopping

Overview

It's set back during the time when mullets and stonewash jeans were worn not with irony but with self-assurance, yes I'm talking the 1980s. Shopping is a glorious trip down memory lane to a brothers' bedroom scattered with dinosaur toys and plastered with posters of all the latest sports cars.

Background news footage places the story at the time of the dawn raids but writer-directors Mark Albiston and Louis Sutherland choose not to focus too heavily on the political and more on the familial. The reason for this is explained here. As I was watching the film though, I thought it was a bit of a shame that the raids weren't more central to the story as an indepth exploration of this dark chapter in our history could have added to the film's universality.

The slow building coming-of-age story is set on the Kapiti Coast and centres on Willie (Kevin Paulo) who is the teenage son of a Samoan mother (Maureen Fepuleai) and a white father Terry (Alistair Browning). While his mother playfully scolds him with the back of a jandal, Terry uses the force of his fist to get his message across. Willie, he insists, must fight to be respected in a predominantly Pakeha society. But he acts more like a bully than a father, leaving Willie to take care of his gentle-spirited younger brother Solomon (Julian Dennison).

Willie's dead-end job as a sales clerk at Farmers is weighing him down but a chance encounter with charismatic petty thief Bennie (Jacek Koman) provides just the outlet he craves. Suddenly he is living the high life of easy money, fast cars and parties.

Comparisons between Shopping and Taika Waititi's Boy will no doubt be made but the focus on racial prejudices and domestic violence in this film makes for darker viewing. It's not all sombre though; moments of understated and quick humour cleverly break up the underlying tension. Overall, the acting's pretty solid and Kevin Paulo and Julian Dennison give particularly convincing performances. The relationship between these siblings is at times endearing and utterly heartbreaking.

While for me Shopping doesn't quite reach its full potential it tells a powerful story and one that stayed with me for days. An engaging and beautifully shot film about two rather charming local brothers.