Pike River Review: No Settlement for Grief

Accountability feels like a word that’s lost all meaning lately. We hear it invoked constantly, yet watch as those who should be held responsible find loopholes, settlements, and ways to make inconvenient truths disappear. Pike River, a powerful drama from New Zealand, reminds us what happens when ordinary people refuse to accept that reality.

Based on the 2010 Pike River Mine disaster that killed 29 workers in an underground explosion, the film follows the years-long battle for justice led by Anna Osborne (Melanie Lynskey, Griffin in Summer) and Sonya Rockhouse (Robyn Malcolm). Anna lost her husband Milt. Sonya lost her 21-year-old son Ben, who had taken an extra shift that day to save money for a move to Australia. The mining company knew conditions were unsafe. Reports had been filed and ignored. And when the tragedy struck, the families were strung along with false hope while executives scrambled to cover their tracks.

Director Robert Sarkies and screenwriter Fiona Samuel have crafted a film that plays the David vs. Goliath formula with remarkable restraint. They don’t manipulate your emotions with swelling music or manufactured confrontations. Instead, they trust their two leads to carry the weight, and Lynskey and Malcolm deliver performances that feel authentically raw without ever tipping into melodrama.

What makes the film work is how it lets the friendship between Anna and Sonya develop naturally. These women are not obvious allies. Rough-edged and divorced, Sonya is the polar opposite of Anna, who’s battling a cancer recurrence while grieving the love of her life. Both are loud, opinionated, and not afraid to curse. The script wisely keeps them at arm’s length initially, letting their partnership build organically until it becomes unbreakable. Malcolm builds confidence in Sonya incrementally, finding her voice to speak not just for herself but for her son who can’t. Lynskey refuses to let Anna’s illness slow her tongue or quiet her fight.

Lucy Lawless (Minions: The Rise of Gru) appears as Helen Kelly, the union leader and lawyer who championed the families’ cause, though the role feels truncated given Kelly’s actual involvement. Erroll Shand (Mārama) brings unexpected depth to Pete, Sonya’s live-in boyfriend, written against type as a genuine source of support. The ensemble playing other victims’ families performs with sensitivity and respect throughout.

Cinematographer Gin Loane captures the West Coast landscape with appropriate bleakness, the mine looming like a character itself. Several haunting shots show headlamps emerging from darkness, sometimes resolving into shapes, sometimes remaining just lights in the void. It’s a striking visual metaphor for loss that permeates the film. Karl Sölve Steven‘s score matches the tone without overwhelming it.

At 138 minutes, the film runs long and compresses some events in its final stretch. The legal specifics get streamlined, though Sarkies finds other ways to convey consequences. I wasn’t aware of this disaster before watching, which says something about how stories get buried. 29 people died doing their jobs. A company tried to buy its way out of guilt. Two women said that wasn’t good enough.

With accountability feeling increasingly like a fantasy in a world that doesn’t like to admit they were wrong, Pike River arrives as both a lesson and a reminder: sometimes the only people who will speak for the dead are those who loved them most.