Reviewed by Jacob Powell

WHAT'S MORE awkward than bringing your ethnically out of place partner home to meet the family? Getting there, having them stared at and then told to bugger off because they’re not wanted! This is exactly what happens in the first ten minutes of Toa Fraser’s memorable debut directorial outing – No. 2.


A deft mix of earthy comedy and drama, No.2, adapted from Fraser’s play of the same name, is a pleasure to watch. Set deep in the heart of Auckland suburbia (Mt Roskill – Auckland’s own bible belt), New Zealand audiences will find recognisable locales, replete with monochrome, weatherboard state housing on a ¼ acre section with circa 1970s furnishings and fittings.

The action centres around Nana Maria (Ruby Dee – American film and television veteran), the matriarch of a Fijian family, and her somewhat unreasonable, middle-of-the-night request (read: demand) to have her grandchildren organise an impromptu feast, with a whole pig and “no outsiders”. Just like in her youth. Using the excuse of wanting to choose her ‘successor’, she sets about gathering her physically and relationally scattered brood back to their Mt Roskill homestead with more in mind than just a hearty feed and some music.

Nana Maria, like many of our elders, has an abiding sense of her mortality and is determined to see the frayed strands of her familial rope platted back together before she goes – or at least to start the process. She struck me as equal parts uncomprehending and lucid as she harangued, laughed, slept and cried her way through the story. I did find Dee’s performance more than a touch on the theatrical side, which was, at times, a little distracting.

I am sure there was much about her I did not get, and there were parts when her character seemed to jar somewhat, but her social ‘position’ I understood perfectly well. Growing up in a Maori/Pakeha setting, my nana stood as a similar focal point in the wider family portrait. She could put a name to every face. She knew all the stories. She was accorded respect and honour, no matter how infuriating she was being. And like nana Maria, it was she who provided a sense of ‘home’ and drew the dispersed family together like no one else could.

Though we are watching a ‘Fijian’ story, anyone who lives among pacific cultures will not fail to see, and feel, the cultural mix in this line-up as they sway along to a background of Island tunes, Don McGlashan compositions, and local Pasifika flavoured hip-hop. It was nice to see locals Rene Naufahu, Mia Blake, Miriama McDowell, and Taungaroa Emile on the big screen, looking fresh and at home in their roles. The supporting cast did a more than adequate job of avoiding the wooden or tired performances that plague any number of lesser, local productions.

I am sure that audiences anywhere will connect with the heart of this film, which is all about family. Discordant, dysfunctional, but more deeply connected than almost any other social grouping can be, No. 2 warmly and honestly embraces the family. For Fraser, it seems a place of hope and of resentment, of sacrifice and of unreal expectation. No matter what your background, you should be able to identify with something of the relationship dynamics that abound, whilst, in true pacific fashion, enjoy your share of honest, guilt-free laughs.

Nana Maria and No. 2 left me with a sense of the importance of just being present, and a slight melancholy feeling for a past that is slipping through our collective hands. We don’t necessarily have to get along, or agree, we just have to be in relationship – a part of each others lives.

To enjoy some quality Pasifika fare, a few laughs, a pig, a “raskill”, and a chance to sit through some tense family moments that aren’t your own, why not wander on down to No. 2 and join the party.