UPROAR - Mark Reviews Movies

Uproar, Blue Fox Entertainment

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 14, 2024

There's a lot about Josh Waaka (Julian Dennison) that makes him "different" from the general gist of his peers, and that's what makes him so much more interesting than most them, too. Uproar looks at this confused young man, who is 17 years old and possesses issues regarding his weight and his cultural identity and his uncertainty about what he wants to do with his life, and finds someone worth getting to know for about two hours.

Sometimes, movies have a lot to say, but other times, one says just the right thing about a fairly limited topic. This is one of those second cases.

The story, written by co-director Hamish Bennett and Sonia Whiteman, does exist within a very specific place, time, and political backdrop. It's New Zealand in 1981, and the news in the country—and around the world, for that matter—is the international tour of the South African national rugby team.

There's controversy surrounding the tour, to say the least, because of the country's system of Apartheid. While some New Zealanders—especially those belonging to the indigenous Māori people, who face their own historical and present state of systemic prejudice against them—want an official disavowal of the team's publicity effort and South Africa's racist system, others just want the sport to be played and the politics to be ignored for a while.

That's the larger background of Josh's story, which finds his life in its own state of upheaval. He has been raised by his English-born mother Shirley (Minnie Driver) since the death of his and his older brother's father, a Māori man. The older brother Jamie (James Rolleston) was a professional rugby player, but a career-ending injury has led to depression and a physical, as well mental, inability for him to even look for work to help out the family. While Shirley works as a cleaner at the exclusive boarding school where her elder son was a star and her younger one is not so much, Josh has taken a delivery route after school to make some cash on the side, while also playing—not particularly well, either—for the school's secondary rugby squad.

Here's a kid, basically, with plenty of notions of who he is and should be, but for all of those ideas, his peers, society, and even his own doubts tell him he isn't or shouldn't be those things. Classmates make fun of him for being overweight, insult him for his Māori background with whispered racial epithets, and mock him for not being nearly as talented and, hence, "useful" to the school as his older brother.

It's little wonder that Josh has developed a sense of humor about everything—and especially himself—and decided to keep everything and everyone at a relatively safe distance. Dennison's performance here is heartbreakingly recognizable in that way, while also bringing a natural charm to the role. Considering the direction the story takes, one wonders how much of the tale is autobiographical on the part of Bennett, Whiteman, or co-director Paul Middleditch, but we also start to consider how much personal experience the lead, who started acting in some high-profile New Zealand indies in his youth, brings to this role, too.

The heart of this is about finding oneself, and with all of the possibilities in front of him from his birth and his family and societal interests, a new one throws Josh's life for a loop. That comes from his English teacher Madigan (the increasingly reliable and endearing Rhys Darby), who suggests Josh should join his newly formed drama club for its lunch-hour meetings.

Josh turns down the offer, saying he has other engagements at lunchtime (He actually sits alone in the library, trying to sneak his meal from the watchful eyes of the school librarian), but upon showing up for a session (only because the librarian catches on), Josh wows Madigan with a monologue he has already memorized. Well, "wow" isn't exactly the right word for it, but let's all be fortunate enough to have had a teacher like Madigan, who's encouraging but not in a flatteringly dishonest way. As a high school drama coach, he has seen some bad actors in his time, and with that framing in mind, Madigan simply tells Josh, "That wasn't bad." He even suggests Josh should prepare an audition for a prestigious dramatic academy in Christchurch.

The whole film is funny, warm, and direct in this fashion, and that goes a long way to making this story, which tackles a variety of emotional and political topics with a scattershot approach, feel more cohesive than it probably should. Josh has to deal with his own problems, now amplified because his mother doesn't think acting is a worthwhile pursuit and James recruits him to the primary rugby squad after the older brother gets a job as a coach for the team, and he's also drawn into the controversy surrounding the South African rugby team.

After watching and filming protests featuring a Māori tribal dance, Josh starts to see the heritage that his classmates and even his principal (played by Mark Mitchinson), who has a zero-tolerance policy on protesting, say or imply is something to hide as a source of strength. The film depiction of prejudice as something equally detrimental in its direct and implicit forms is especially potent within the context of Josh's story.

Not everything about the film is examined thoroughly or lines up evenly, but that doesn't matter. Uproar is a smart and considerate film about one young man's personal and political awakenings.

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