Ben Rogers

This was the first of the pre-departure movies that I watched and I can truly say that it was amazing. It made me feel excited to get to go and visit such a beautiful country and curious about the parallels between our two countries. Not to mention that it was also just a really cool movie that had a great story line and amazing camera work.

The setting of this movie made me so excited to get to travel to such a beautiful and lush country. Every shot from the amazing aerial shots that put on full display the gorgeous green, tree-covered mountains of New Zealand to the shots of the rolling country side made me want to get out and explore this amazing country. When the movie ended I found myself wanting to just go and camp in the woods of New Zealand for a month because they’re just so cool and full of life that I’ve never seen before.

The second thing about the movie that I liked was how it got me thinking about the similarities that may run between our countries. Watching how Ricky and his social worker interacted made me think of how that dynamic is often paralleled in the US. Which got me thinking, “In what other ways are we similar?” I can’t wait to go and figure out how our cultures differ but also how they are alike.

The last thing that I really liked about this movie was just how good of a movie it was. I enjoyed how it was never really easy to guess what was coming next in the story. The movie was full of different twists and turns, as any good story should be, but these changes in direction weren’t overly foreshadowed to a point where you can guess what’s going to happen in a movie before it happens. I also really liked the story-line itself. Watching Bella get Ricky to open up and just be a happy kid and then getting to watch Hec slowly open up to Ricky was really heartwarming.