‘Uproar’ (2024) Review – New Zealand Coming-Of-Age Film Explores The Fight To Find Your Voice

Set against the backdrop of a rainy suburb in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1981, 17-year-old Josh Waaka (Julian Dennison) is a student at St. Gilberg’s College trying his best (and failing) to go unnoticed. He stands out for his size and Māori ancestry, and at a school and town obsessed with Rugby, he’s mostly unconcerned. That’s also a fair way to describe his attitude towards his Māori roots and the protests happening around the town when the Springboks, an Apartheid-era South African team, tours New Zealand. The protests divide the country on the line of sports versus politics, and when, or if, the two should cross. But as the film goes on, we discover the lines between them are not as blurry as they may seem.

While the film does open wide in scope at times to look at the complicated discussions around race, identity, immigration, and discrimination, it is foremost a coming-of-age film from a rarely seen perspective. Josh is very much the focus of the film as he wrestles with coming into his own, owning his identity, and discovering what really matters to him. The search for identity is always a fascinating staple of films, but in this one, Josh is faced with numerous questions about each facet of his life. His brother Jamie (James Rolleston) is a star rugby player who suffered a major injury that has left him depressed and suicidal. Their father, who was also an impressive Rugby player, has already died. His mother Shirley (Minnie Driver) is an English woman who helps out at the college as a cleaner. Shirley, now a single mother dealing with the grief of losing her husband and struggling to help her son recover from his injury, is a pragmatic realist. She pushes for Josh to join the First XV on the Rugby team believing it best for his future.

On top of that, Josh’s only friend, Grace (newcomer Jada Fa’atui) joins the protest movement alongside Samantha (Erana James) which challenges everything Josh has done until that point and forces him to decide the kind of person he wants to be going forward. Then Madigan (Rhys Davies), his English teacher notices that Josh has a talent for acting, and pushes for him to apply to a school for the dramatic arts. Josh is now under a lot of pressure to live up to his father and brother’s legacy in rugby and to get along with his racist teammates. He has to strengthen his acting skills for his audition and deal with the internal conflict of standing up for his heritage or ignoring it to fit in. 

As the film goes on, you’re drawn into every emotion that Josh is feeling. His inner torment to do the right thing, and being completely unsure of what that right thing is. It is the conflict that we’ve all faced, especially as a young person dealing with the terrifying question of which way to go. Do you choose the safe route that makes your family and neighbors happy or do you go against the grain because it has to be done, and can you deal with the consequences of those actions?

This internal battle is felt tremendously through Dennison’s performance and explodes in two incredibly powerful scenes in the latter half of the film. When he records his audition tape and does a powerful Haka it feels like releasing all of the tension that’s been bubbling inside Josh throughout the entire film. And a powerful silent protest at the Rugby game that shifts the conversation of what’s important in life and when you can express it. In both scenes, Dennison delivers a star-making performance that jolts the audience into catharsis and thrusts the discussion forward on speaking up for injustice. Not just who can, but when you can, and knowing it’s never too late to find your voice or your place in this world.

Uproar ends on a hopeful message, and you remember that this story is set in 1981; it has relevance to how we’ve dealt with public protests to this day. The film does a great job of raising the score during the silent protest scene over the screams and jeers of the audience, drowning them out. It’s noise; loud but empty. Vapid and selfish. Eventually, it fades away. That’s the hope anyway. We’re still waiting for it to happen some decades later. Hopefully, this film moves us a step closer.

Uproar is currently playing in select theaters courtesy of Blue Fox Entertainment. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieX8sRjCrbs]