In My Father's Den

AroView: Achieving a new high watermark in production terms at least, this vivid New Zealand melodrama harnesses the complexities of Maurice Gee’s ‘murder-mystery’ in highly cinematic and satisfying terms.

Years estranged from his family’s dysfunctions, an aloof and emotionally-damaged war photographer returns from abroad to bury his father, where he captures the imagination of a local teenage girl, and the subsequent mistrust of the local community.

Convincingly cast and acted, and with an equally strong sense of its ‘Mainland’ setting, this takes on an ambitious, unconventional story with enough confidence to even carry it over the novel’s slightly contrived denouement.