Hitting home

Robyn Malcolm and Melanie Lynskey are outstanding as the women who fought for Pike River justice.

- PIKE RIVER Directed by Robert Sarkies

There will be few New Zealanders who don't remember the coal mining tragedy that cost the lives of 29 men in November, 2010.

There will be few who don't remember the false hope that came with the news from Greymouth, that the men might be able to be rescued just as miners in Chile had a few months before and miners in Tasmania a few years earlier. But it wasn't to be, and Pike River, a powerful dramatisation of the disaster and its aftermath, runs on dashed hopes.

What may have dissipated from public memory in the years since, though, is the ongoing struggle of many families still agitating for resolution – be it retrieving their loved ones’ remains, bringing to justice the companies involved, or getting successive governments to keep their promises.

Director Robert Sarkies goes to great lengths to honour the victims and their families in his quietly compelling film focused on two women fighting for justice. He brings to it the restraint and authentic touch he delivered in Out of the Blue, his superb 2006 drama about the Aramoana massacre.