13 Apr REVIEW – ‘Tinā’ is an earnest, deeply moving, and emotionally intelligent crowdpleaser
There’s a certain kind of film that doesn’t just show its heart but wears it so openly that you can feel the pulse between the frames. Tinā, the hugely impressive directorial debut of writer/director Miki Magasiva, is one such film. It is a story of loss, faith, music, and cultural identity that lingers not because it reinvents the coming-of-age or underdog formula, but because of how fiercely it believes in what it’s doing. Messy in moments but quietly profound in others, Tinā is an earnest, deeply moving, and emotionally intelligent crowdpleaser, grounded by one of the year’s most quietly powerful lead performances and buoyed by the sheer force of its intention.
Set in Christchurch, the story follows Mareta Percival (Anapela Polata’ivao), a Samoan New Zealander and former primary school teacher who has been adrift since the 2011 earthquake tragically claimed the life of her teenage daughter, Lanita (Tiare Lily Savea). When we meet Mareta, she’s a woman defined by a quiet ache, one whose grief has become fused with the rhythms of daily life.
Three years later, at the urging of her nephew, Sio (Beulah Koale), she steps back into the classroom—this time as a substitute teacher at the mostly white, strictly traditional, and very affluent St Francis School. What follows is a gentle but increasingly stirring narrative about how a woman once shattered by tragedy finds a new sense of purpose through guiding a group of children in song. Initially greeted with scepticism, Mareta proposes forming a school choir and, against the odds, earns permission to helm it.
As the choir comes together, Tinā begins to take shape not as a story of musical success, but of slow transformation. These are children battling their own private troubles, and through Mareta’s unconventional style of teaching—one that embraces vulnerability, faith, and cultural pride—they begin to flourish. It’s a film that celebrates progress not through the predictability of competition wins, but in small, cumulative moments of connection. But the spectre of grief still hovers, and Magasiva never lets us forget that Mareta’s new role is also her final act of defiance against fate.
Magasiva directs with a sincerity that’s hard to fake and harder to forget. Tinā has the texture of something hugely personal—perhaps even spiritual—and its tone often recalls the gentle humanism of early Garth Davis or John Carney. The visuals, captured with a golden-toned simplicity by cinematographer Andrew McGeorge, lean into warmth rather than polish, allowing domestic scenes and choir rehearsals to feel natural and lived-in. The film doesn’t strive for visual grandeur but instead favours human-scale storytelling, trusting its characters—and the voices that carry them—to do the heavy lifting.
Leading that charge is the extraordinary Polata’ivao, whose performance is the film’s single most powerful asset. With quiet gravity and emotional specificity, Polata’ivao crafts a portrait of grief that never tips into melodrama. Mareta is not a martyr, nor a saint—she is angry, tired, occasionally prickly, and all the more compelling for it. Her belief in the choir, and the redemptive power of music, isn’t born from some vague inspirational ethos—it’s all she has left. Every note she coaxes from her students becomes a reclamation of joy, a defiance of the silence that’s threatened to consume her.
Polata’ivao brings an uncommon depth and emotional fluency to the screen—an intuitive understanding of how grief manifests not just in silence, but in the body, in breath, in the cadence of speech. There’s a quiet defiance in her every gesture, especially in how she holds herself during moments of confrontation or spiritual doubt. What makes her performance so affecting is its refusal to sentimentalise Mareta’s suffering; instead, she inhabits her with honesty, strength, and a layered interiority that makes even the simplest scenes pulse with meaning. In a film anchored by music, Polata’ivao becomes the film’s emotional metronome, guiding every beat of the story with grace and soulfulness. It’s a profoundly felt turn and one of the most emotionally articulate performances you’ll see on screen this year.
The young cast members also shine. Antonia Robinson is particularly strong as Sophie, the lead chorister struggling with hidden trauma and deeper insecurities. The film treats her intensely engaging arc with unexpected nuance, never reducing her to a mere troubled prodigy or spoilt brat. And Robinson manages to hold her own against Polata’ivao, which is a minor miracle. Sophie’s final act in the film (no spoilers) is as moving as anything Tinā has to offer, precisely because Magasiva has taken the time to earn it. Supporting players like June (Taylor Rogers), Anthony (Zac O’Meagher), and Mei-Ling (Talia Pua) bring life, specificity, and dashes of levity to their roles, and the ensemble never rings false.
But Tinā doesn’t entirely avoid the tropes of the feel-good drama, and there are times when its structure feels slightly too tidy. The character of Peter Wadsworth (Jamie Irvine), the deputy principal hell-bent on undermining Mareta, is written with a one-dimensionality that occasionally borders on cartoonish. While Irvine does his best to ground Peter in realism, the script often paints him as the kind of smirking bureaucratic villain whose motivations are never particularly clear beyond being an obstacle. It’s a small but noticeable weak spot in a film that otherwise makes a concerted effort to humanise even its minor characters.
Similarly, the pacing occasionally wobbles in the second act. While the emotional stakes remain clear, there are stretches where the narrative seems to spin its wheels, particularly during a subplot involving Mareta’s former colleague Rona (Nicole Whippy). These scenes, while thematically relevant, feel underdeveloped compared to the central choir storyline. One can’t help but wonder if a tighter edit might have brought the film closer to its thematic core, especially as it heads into its final, sincerely emotional stretch.
Still, these are small blemishes on an otherwise remarkably heartfelt and culturally rich film. One of Tinā’s greatest strengths is its rootedness in Samoan culture and the way it threads that culture into every element of the story. The moments set in Mareta’s church, or involving her community, are handled with care and reverence. There’s no tokenism here, no empty celebration of ‘diversity’—instead, we get a clear-eyed, authentic depiction of diasporic life, intergenerational tension, and the spiritual dimensions of music-making. The film is acutely aware that for many, especially those from migrant or Pasifika backgrounds, the arts are not just extracurricular—they are a lifeline, a way of preserving selfhood in the face of systemic erasure.
In a film centred on the creation of a choir, naturally, the gorgeous soundtrack deserves special mention. Blending traditional choral arrangements with contemporary Samoan instrumentation, it becomes the emotional spine of the film. The original songs performed by the St Francis choir are beautiful, not because they’re polished, but because they’re emotionally unguarded. A mid-film performance at Mareta’s church is a particular highlight—a moment where the camera lingers just long enough to let the voices swell, and for the audience to sit in the complexity of Mareta’s pride and pain. It’s a scene that earns its sentimentality through the sheer authenticity of its staging.
When the final gut-wrenching scenes arrive, Tinā does not go for cheap catharsis. Instead, Magasiva leans into quiet devastation, and then—slowly, almost imperceptibly—into something like hope. The emotional payoff is profound, but it never feels manipulative. By the time the credits roll, the film has earned every tear it elicits. And, trust me, you will shed many. It’s rare to see a film so willing to engage with the messiness of legacy—what we leave behind, and how we live on in those we’ve taught, loved, or simply shared space with. It’s even rarer to see that handled with such cultural specificity and emotional tact.
Tinā might be sentimental, a little uneven, and at times too enamoured with its own message. But that message—a call to listen, to sing, to resist despair through connection—is delivered with such honesty and depth that it’s impossible not to be moved. This is a film made with love, yes, but also with insight. It reminds us that music is not just something we hear; it is something we inherit. Something we pass on. Something that echoes even after we’re gone.
In that way, Tinā isn’t just a film about grief or teaching or music. It’s a film about what it means to live in the aftermath of both tragedy and grace. About the inspiring women who build bridges between cultures and generations with little more than faith, patience, and a tuning fork. And about the legacies we can create, not in spite of sorrow, but because of it. It’s not hard to see why this film is already doing huge numbers at the New Zealand box office. It deserves it. This is easily one of the most beautiful gems you’ll see in a cinema this year. Don’t miss it.
Distributor: Madman Films
Cast: Anapela Polata’ivao, Antonia Robinson, Beulah Koale, Nicole Whippy, Dalip Sondhi, Jamie Irvine, Alison Bruce
Director: Miki Magasiva
Producers: Miki Magasiva, Dan Higgins, Mario Gaoa
Screenplay: Miki Magasiva
Cinematography: Andrew McGeorge
Costume Design: Sacha Young
Editor: Luke Haigh
Music: Sebastien Pan, Tuilagi Dr. Igelese Ete
Running Time: 124 minutes
Release Date: 1st May 2025 (Australia)