Bunny King washes windscreens at traffic lights, argues with caseworkers, and refuses to accept that the state knows better than she does what her children need. Gaysorn Thavat's 2021 New Zealand drama The Justice of Bunny King, led by Essie Davis and Thomasin McKenzie, spends one hundred and one minutes in the company of a woman the system has already written off.
What is The Justice of Bunny King about?
Bunny is a mother of two with a chequered history and very little patience for bureaucracy. Her children are in care, and getting them back means proving to a chain of officials that she can provide a stable home, something that is hard to do when you have no home to speak of. She scrapes together what she can, shows up to every appointment, and keeps pushing against a process that seems designed to wear her down. Then a confrontation at her sister's house changes the shape of her fight. Her teenage niece Tonyah needs protecting, and Bunny, who can barely protect herself, takes the girl under her wing. From that point the two of them are on the move together, and the odds against Bunny stop being merely long and become the whole world.
About the cast
Essie Davis carries the film as its title character, matched by Thomasin McKenzie as Tonyah. The supporting cast includes Ryan O'Kane, Erroll Shand, Angus Stevens and Amelie Baynes. Thavat, directing, builds the picture around close, handheld attention to Davis's face and body language, so that Bunny's stubbornness, charm and exhaustion register in equal measure. McKenzie's quieter presence gives the older woman's volatility something to push against.
Context & significance
Coming out of New Zealand in 2021, The Justice of Bunny King belongs to a social-realist tradition that looks at welfare systems from the point of view of the people caught inside them. The film does not treat its heroine as a saint; her past is described as sketchy, and her methods are frequently self-defeating. What it insists on is that her love for her children is real and that the procedures meant to protect them keep pushing her further from them. Themes of housing insecurity, domestic danger and the way a single criminal record can follow a woman for years give the story its charge. Its critical reception was respectable, with particular attention paid to the central performance. The Farsi catalogue line for this title sums it up as a story of women fighting for their rights, and that is a fair description of the film's spine.
Watching The Justice of Bunny King on Ktime
The Justice of Bunny King streams on K-Time; sign in with a free account login to start it. The film plays in its original English, and no Persian dub or subtitle track is listed for it at present, so it is best suited to viewers who follow English dialogue comfortably. K-Time's Farsi menus make finding it among the platform's international dramas simple on phone, tablet or television.