The Great South
2023 · 12m · New Zealand
Directed by Taniora Ormsby
Genres: coming-of-age, crime, drama
Tones: contemplative, dark, tender
Two best friends navigate the tough streets of South Auckland to buy a bottle of milk.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The premise is a feint—a milk run that's really about class, containment, and what it means to move through a place that doesn't want you there, which is obvious enough that it almost works, except Ormsby trusts the obviousness too much and forgets to subvert it.
Ormsby locates herself in the lineage of intimate urban realism—there's echoes of Lynne Ramsay's spatial precision and Tsivia Barkai Yacov's observational patience—and the film's formal restraint (what it refuses to sentimentalize) feels earned, even if the thematic weight sits a touch heavy-handed.
The entire film pivots on a single decision: the camera stays locked in wide shot, never cutting closer, which means every emotional register has to live in posture and the space between bodies—and that constraint is what transforms a simple errand into something that actually *breathes*.