When you watch a documentary about Jacinda Ardern, you expect empathy and kindness woven into every frame. That’s what New Zealand’s former Prime Minister has always embodied, and it’s an ethos she continues to champion through her dual fellowship at Harvard University, where she now studies and speaks on online extremism, leadership, and governance. The world witnessed her grapple with all three during her tumultuous five-year tenure—a leader who gave birth in office and steered a nation through some of its darkest hours.
The documentary, Prime Minister, proves apt not only for its focus on Ardern’s leadership journey but also for how unflinchingly it exposes her vulnerability to sexism, vitriol, and extremism that were viciously directed at her.
In one particularly harrowing scene, as Ardern battles anti-vaccine and anti-mandate protesters, her convoy retreats from the besieged Parliament grounds while a group of women protesters film and hurl vile insults at her. Directors Michelle Walshe and Lindsay Utz deliberately preserve this footage—the voices, the laughter, the cruelty—allowing it to anchor a broader conversation about the online abuse of women in politics.
“The problem is that women do not raise it because it looks like they are too sensitive or trying to cop out of criticism, and then it continues,” Ardern reflects with characteristic directness.
This tension between perception and reality defined much of Ardern’s tenure. While she became a global icon of progressive leadership, her experience at home told a different story—one of relentless scrutiny, media skepticism, and a government lurching from crisis to crisis.
The Empathetic Leader
The documentary’s strength lies in examining Ardern’s distinctly empathetic approach to leadership, particularly in contrast to the hyper-masculine, far-right attitudes dominating Western politics. Her response to the 2019 Christchurch terror attack exemplifies this difference. Rather than inflammatory rhetoric, she chose to “other” the terrorists while reassuring the Muslim community that New Zealand remained their home because they “chose New Zealand to be their home.”
Her visits to hospitals, meetings with grieving families, her decision to wear a hijab, and her refusal to name the terrorist—these actions remain seared in the memory of those who witnessed her compassion firsthand. The swift ban on semi-automatic weapons demonstrated how empathy could drive decisive policy.
Beyond the Whitewash
Unlike many political documentaries that sanitize their subjects, Prime Minister embraces complexity. Given Ardern’s resignation in January 2023—just a year after violent protests “desecrated the Parliament grounds, the People’s Parliament, our Democracy”—one might expect a defensive narrative. Instead, Walshe and Utz present the full spectrum: the triumphs, the failures, and the toll.
Surprisingly, the most devastating material doesn’t focus on policy failures—the housing crisis, emission reduction targets, or economic challenges. Instead, it’s the vicious targeting of her family that proves most unsettling.
At the documentary’s emotional core stands Clarke Gayford, Ardern’s husband, who emerges as both a silent supporter and fellow sufferer. Through his home videos, we glimpse the woman behind the world leader—her daily internal battles and vulnerabilities. Most poignantly, we see a man who chose to be a primary caregiver to their daughter while weathering public trolling with remarkable stoicism.
“I made a choice to be there; my family didn’t. And yet, they paid the price,” Ardern acknowledges, her voice heavy with the weight of that reality.
Perhaps the documentary’s greatest achievement is revealing how Ardern’s experience mirrors countless women grappling with self-doubt. Early footage shows her confronting impostor syndrome as she prepares to lead the Labour Party into a crucial election. Even as “Jacindamania” swept the globe, positioning her as the poster child of progressive politics in an increasingly right-wing world, we see a leader haunted by a fundamental question: “What if it all blows up?”
This vulnerability becomes even more pronounced when she navigates an unexpected pregnancy shortly after becoming Prime Minister. The UN footage of her holding her daughter, with husband and bassinet nearby, made global headlines—the first time a sitting Prime Minister had dared show the world she was also a mother. The irony wasn’t lost on anyone.
The COVID Crisis
Ardern’s pandemic response—her aggressive “booster campaign” that kept New Zealand’s case numbers low while Western nations struggled—receives measured treatment. “Just nothing we do is right,” she admits with characteristic honesty. Faced with the choice between doing too little or too much in life and death, she chose the latter.
“I had two goals in COVID: save people’s lives and keep everyone together. And I did one, but I didn’t manage quite to do the other,” she reflects—a candid admission of partial success and partial failure.
What anchors Ardern through the darkest moments is a story that serves as her life motto: Ernest Shackleton, the Irish explorer who led Antarctic expeditions and returned home with all crew members alive after two years trapped in ice. From this tale, she derives the optimism that fuels her empathetic, humanistic approach to leadership.
The Weight of Leadership
As the documentary concludes, we witness the cumulative impact on Ardern’s health, sleep, and decision-making capacity. While critics accused her of abandoning the country, Walshe and Utz unflinchingly show a leader who recognized her limitations.
“I wouldn’t have enough in the tank to do a good job,” she tells her husband in footage shot at home as she prepares her resignation speech. “A cumulative effect of everything.”
For someone who calls herself “the reluctant Prime Minister,” Ardern’s final message resonates with particular power:
“You can be anxious, sensitive, kind, and wear your heart on your sleeve. You can be a mother or not… You can be a cryer, a hugger, you can be all those things, and be here. You can lead, just like me.”
The Power of Optimism
As her wedding footage rolls during the film’s closing moments, Ardern leaves viewers with hard-won wisdom: “You underestimate what you are capable of until you are doing it.”
For a leader who describes herself as “a person plagued with impostor syndrome and self-doubt,” her final thoughts on optimism feel particularly earned: “Optimism is true moral courage; it’s a state of mind that helps you to push through. It’s not naivety.”
In documenting a woman who experienced her share of failures, disappointments, and painful surprises throughout her political career, Prime Minister ultimately captures something profoundly human: a leader fighting back tears while maintaining hope for a better future, living proof that vulnerability and strength can coexist at the highest levels of power.
Review Courtesy of Neha Jha
Feature Image Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures