Saving Grace

Aroview: A kind of Jesus of Upper Cuba Street, this adaptation of Duncan Sarkies' stageplay ambitiously hammers a drama of poverty in inner-city Wellington onto a stark Christian allegory.

Results are rather patchy though, and despite quirky performances from Kirsty Hamilton and Jim Moriarty, as the carpenter with a Jesus-complex, most of the interesting ideas get lost in the final reckoning.

NZ International Film Festival 1998