Best of the 2010s – 2016 - Hunt for the Wilderpeople

This was my introduction to what Taika Waititi can do – his mix of poignancy and humour, with surprising moments of visual flair. It’s the story of Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison), a boy who doesn’t quite fit in, rejected by most of his foster homes. Finding warmth and acceptance with Bella (Rima Te Wiata), albeit slightly less with her husband Hec (Sam Neill), he’s then shattered when Bella dies, and flees into the bush. Hec follows but injures himself, and the two have to find their way back out, in the meantime realising their bond.   It’s simultaneously a small scale story of a boy and a man finding a reluctant kind of family, and an epic road movie as the two trek across New Zealand. And it’s a warm comedy with an underpinning of connections lost and found again.  It also has the shoulda-been-an-academy-award-winning “Ricky Baker” song, and is one of those films that lugged my jaded self into a sense of warmth and adoration.