
Lorde previews next single Man of the Year from new album Virgin
The article outlined the single's inspiration coming to Lorde as she was 'sitting on the floor of her living room, trying to visualise a version of herself 'that was fully representative of how [her] gender felt in that moment'.'
'What she saw once again was an image of herself in men's jeans, this time wearing nothing else but her gold chain and duct tape on her chest.
'The tape had this feeling of rawness to her, of it 'not being a permanent solution'.'
Lorde told Rolling Stone journalist Brittany Spanos; 'I went to the cupboard, and I got the tape out, and I did it to myself'.
'I have this picture staring at myself. I was blonde [at the time]. It scared me what I saw. I didn't understand it.
'But I felt something bursting out of me. It was crazy. It was something jagged. There was this violence to it.'
The singer also revealed in the interview, she now describes herself as 'in the middle gender-wise".
The makeshift top in this new image shares a visual resemblance to the outfit Lorde wore to the Met Gala earlier this month.
After a four-year hiatus the Green Light singer returned to the high profile fashion fundraiser event sporting a silver floating bandeau top, matching suit jacket and maxi skirt by American design Thom Browne.
Virgin, Lorde's fourth album, will be released on June 27. In an email to her database announcing the album, the Auckland-born singer said she was 'proud and scared' of the soon-to-be-released work.
'The colour of the album is clear. Like bathwater, windows, ice, spit. Full transparency. The language is plain and unsentimental. The sounds are the same wherever possible.'
Lorde said she was 'trying to see myself, all the way through. I was trying to make a document that reflected my femininity: raw, primal, innocent, elegant, openhearted, spiritual, masc'.

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Scoop
20 hours ago
- Scoop
Rita Ora Drops New Single ‘Heat' Ahead Of Taking The Stage At World Pride Music Festival
Today, Rita Ora turns up the temperature with the release of her hotly anticipated new single 'Heat' - arriving on the same day as her performance at the World Pride Music Festival in Washington, D.C. Produced by Peter Thomas (P!nk, Selena Gomez, Teddy Swims), who co-wrote the song alongside Leland (Brett McLaughlin), Michael Matosic, and Troye Sivan, 'Heat' is bold, playful, and filled with sun-soaked energy. Rita says: 'Dropping 'Heat' on the same day as my World Pride performance feels like the perfect way to kick off summer - it's such a special moment for me and for my fans who have supported me over the years. I'm obsessed with this track, and honestly, I just wanted to have fun with it! It's bold, cheeky, and totally drenched in golden, feel-good energy. For me, it's all about celebrating freedom, joy, being unapologetically yourself and owning who you are!" Rita first gave fans a taste of 'Heat' on stage in Miami while supporting Kylie Minogue on the US leg of her Tension tour - and it's already set to become a standout in her live set, with a sizzling appearance lined up at Capital's Summertime Ball on June 15 in London. The accompanying video for 'Heat', directed by Justin Daashuur Hopkins, was filmed on a vibrant, sun-drenched stretch of Miami Beach and plunges us into a surreal, high-energy day in the lives of the city's most eclectic beachgoers. Shot in rich technicolour tones inspired by legendary photographer and photojournalist Martin Parr, the visuals celebrate the wild, sweaty, and gloriously eccentric spirit of Miami's beach culture - a world where it's always summer. Watch the video HERE (will be live at 4am Saturday June 7) Rita Ora's multi-platinum music career has won her commercial and critical acclaim with 13 x UK Top 10 singles and four x UK Number One singles. In the UK she was among the first to receive a BRIT Billion award after surpassing the landmark of one billion career UK streams. While in the US, her acclaimed singles and star-studded collaborations have earned her a #3 Billboard Hot 100 song, 7 x Top 10 hits on Billboard's Dance Club Songs Chart, 5 of which reached #1, and 6 x Top 20 singles on Billboard's Hot Dance/Electronic Songs Chart. Rita's most recent studio album, YOU & I, (released in 2023) landed the coveted #1 spot on the UK Official Independent Albums Chart and was the highest new entry from a female act in the UK Official Albums Chart (debuting at #6). About Rita Ora: Rita Ora is an international critically acclaimed singer-songwriter with over 10 billion global streams and 13 Top 10 UK singles, four of which have gone #1, and was among the first to receive a BRIT Billion award after surpassing the landmark of one billion career UK streams. Her latest album, YOU & I, landed the coveted #1 spot on the UK Official Independent Albums Chart, was the highest new entry from a female act in the UK Official Albums Chart, debuting at #6, and was summarized by Rolling Stone as 'a collection of stunning love songs.' The album features the #1 US Dance Radio hit 'Praising You (feat. Fatboy Slim),' which PAPER declared 'a house banger' and 'You Only Love Me,' for which Billboard praised Rita as 'an expert in the type of sleekly-designed, electro-tinged pop on display.' YOU & I follows previous releases: BANG, a collaboration EP with GRAMMY-winning DJ and producer Imanbek; PHOENIX, which has amassed over four billion streams and spawned four platinum singles; and ORA, her certified platinum debut album, which entered at #1 on the UK charts. Rita 's acclaimed singles and star-studded collaborations have earned her seven Top 10 hits on Billboard's Dance Club Songs Chart, five of which reached #1, six x Top 20 singles on Billboard's Hot Dance/Electronic Songs Chart, and a #3 Billboard Hot 100 song. As a multi-talented industry leader across TV, culture and fashion, with brand partnerships in key sectors, Rita has continuously expanded her personal brand to new heights. In 2024, Rita launched the performance-led haircare brand TYPEBEA alongside Anna Lahey, and the year before, she partnered with Primark to launch her first collection as part of a global multi-season collaboration, bringing together her creative vision with her long-term love of the brand. Her film and television credits include starring in the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise, Detective Pikachu, Twist, Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight, and Descendants: The Rise of Red, which broke records and became Disney Branded Television's most-viewed Disney Channel Original Movie premiere ever on Disney+ by amassing nearly seven million views within its first three days of streaming. Rita 's additional TV credits include co-hosting Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve and the MTV EMAs, serving as a panelist on The Masked Singer U.S. and U.K., and a judge on The Voice Australia. Rita will soon appear in the upcoming films He Bled Neon, Voltron, and the recently announced


The Spinoff
a day ago
- The Spinoff
A ranking of all 46 Lorde songs
If you love Solar Power, this ranking is probably not for you. Lorde's new album is coming out next month, teased with the singles 'What Was That' and 'Man of the Year'. The first one sounds OK, the second one we'll get to in time. Having a new album on the horizon has pushed me to finish what I've been meaning to write for years: a full ranking of Lorde's songs from worst to best, which I want to get in before we have nine new songs to contend with. Much as New Zealanders always worry about the propriety of dunking on our internationally famous celebrities, these lists only work when the artist's work varies widely in quality and you're prepared to be rude about it. As a Solar Power hater, I am going to be mean about some of Lorde's clangers. But I only have opinions on her entire discography because I've listened to half of it enough times to memorise lyrics upon lyrics. She's a good artist! We all make dumb art sometimes, and someone has to appoint themselves to sort the wheat from the chaff. To narrow things down, I've only included songs with a writing credit for Ella Yelich-O'Connor; no covers, songs that were written by someone else, or remixes (except one). This is a referendum on both her writing and delivery (with some asides about her videos). If you want to make an irate post about why my ranking is wrong, Bluesky is pretty public so I might see it there. 46. 'Secrets from a Girl (Who's Seen It All)' – Solar Power I like the video for this song, meaning I have unfortunately listened to it more times than it deserves. The detached nature of the lyrics eliminates any emotions one could get from it ('Remember what you thought was grief before you got the call?' could have been good in some sort of present tense), and in the end, the throughline only boils down to 'I'm so wise'. The melody is grating, twee and closes with a bafflingly bad cameo from Robyn to boot. Just awful stuff. 45. 'Meltdown (with Stromae, Pusha T, Q-Tip and HAIM)' 'My name is Lorde and I'm here to say / These hip hoppers rap in a rapping way' is made weirder by it being a part of the Hunger Games soundtrack, which Lorde curated. 44. 'The Path' – Solar Power There are two worlds within Waiheke Island. The rich people who buy up holiday homes and largely leave them empty, and the locals increasingly sleeping in sheds or cars as a result. At the time Lorde was filming her Solar Power music videos at Cactus Bay, a group called Protect Pūtiki was (and still is, I think) opposing a marina development at Kennedy Point, with land protectors spending hours freezing in kayaks and getting assaulted by police. To her credit, Lorde donated to the group and promoted it on Twitter (possibly elsewhere as well). Nevertheless, Kieran McLean was right to call Solar Power a 'Climate of Denial'. Watching the videos, I always wonder if the sounds of the security guards ramming a protector with a motorboat echoed, in any way, to the other side of the motu. This all feels more interesting to talk about than the whiny vocals and dull hopes of 'The Path'. 'If you're looking for a saviour, well, that's not me.' Guess not! 43. 'Fallen Fruit' – Solar Power As surefire a way to clear a party as a hippie girl loudly belting out Kumbaya on a guitar. 42. 'Mood Ring' – Solar Power Let's get this out of the way: Lorde has argued that Solar Power is meant to be satirical, not an earnest representation of herself. But self-satire (as opposed to self-deprecation) is hard to do well, and the album isn't witty or cutting enough for the satire to be particularly evident. Even if Lorde feels uncomfortable about rich white women and their foibles, the power that comes with being one can't just be handwaved or self-deprecated away. Like a live-in landlord who 'doesn't want there to be a power dynamic', she's trying to act like one of us while retaining the material trappings that unite her with them. This hits worst on 'Mood Ring'; that 'Let's fly somewhere Eastern' musical bit is dire. 41. 'No Better' – Pure Heroine (Extended) Too right it isn't! 40. 'Dominoes' – Solar Power Fine, I think? I forgot how it went while I was listening to it. It's a song off Solar Power, is what I'm saying. 39. 'Stoned at the Nail Salon' – Solar Power The chorus sounds melodically like the superior 'Wild At Heart' by Lana Del Rey, which in turn borrows from Lana's towering perfection of ' Hope Is A Dangerous Thing '. Go listen to that instead! 38. 'The Man with the Axe' – Solar Power The music in the Spotify ads is more compelling than this album. 37. 'California' – Solar Power There are interesting songs about struggling with fame; this isn't one of them. 36. 'Hold No Grudge' – Solar Power A retrospective on heartbreak years after the dust has settled, with slivers of embarrassment and wonder at your own past feelings, and a little regret that you don't feel deeply about it now. Finally, she's written lyrics that properly fit the sparse musical feeling of Solar Power, but the music is still a bit average. 35. 'Helen of Troy' – Solar Power extended version 'The city's fallin' for me just like I'm Helen of Troy' girl shut up. 34. 'Yellow Flicker Beat' – The Hunger Games soundtrack 'I am newly famous and also an introvert.' 33. 'Still Sane' – Pure Heroine Pure Heroine's most skippable track. 32. 'Million Dollar Bills' – The Love Club EP I respect the musical weirdness of the beat, but I don't necessarily want to listen to it a lot. 31. 'Liability (Reprise)' – Melodrama This only ranks low because it's inherently slight; it's good as a pause between 'Supercut' and 'Perfect Places' and doesn't need to be anything more. 30. 'Biting Down' – The Love Club EP My initial notes were 'Chomp chomp', while waiting for the rest of the song to kick in so I could say something else. It's an OK track but feels like it had more potential. 29. 'Leader of a New Regime' – Solar Power This endears itself to me by sounding slightly like a downbeat Of Montreal song (like this one). It'd be better if she'd paired it, as they do, with some exuberant, energetic songs (like this one). 28. 'Bravado' – The Love Club EP I'm biased towards songs in B Minor, the saddest key, but you can tell this is a song from an early EP. 27. 'Solar Power' – Solar Power This one was OK as a single, at least before commercial overplay; I do remember listening to it and thinking good for you mate, nice that you're feeling a bit better. Sadly, it didn't have enough energy to capture the joy or bliss she (or the character she was playing? whatever) seemed to be feeling, and came off as detached. 26. 'Oceanic Feeling' – Solar Power Pretty and peaceful, like floating in a quiet body of water. 'Breathe out, tune in' is corny though – stop yelling at me to relax, hot yoga teacher Lorde! 25. 'Sober II (Melodrama)' – Melodrama 'Loveless' sounded a bit more upbeat, maybe the maudlin grieving was on its way out? Hell no, it's back baby, and I mean that as a compliment. Grief is annoying and repetitive, and this captures the feeling of cleaning up the champagne glasses, nursing a headache and aware of how stupid the argument you're having is but needing to see it through. It's limited by being just a reprise, but I'm not mad at it. 24. 'A World Alone' – Pure Heroine Fine as an album closer, but ultimately just a lesser imitation of 'Ribs'. 23. 'Big Star' – Solar Power This song is the only one from Solar Power I slightly sing along to and would consider learning how to play. Unfortunately, it gets lost in the endless noodling of soft guitar music and low emotional stakes of the album, and it makes the grief over a dead dog feel sort of ambient. It's decent but I want more from it. 22. 'The Love Club' – The Love Club EP The main song off her EP I repeatedly listened to (outside of 'Royals'); nothing spectacular but it's light and sweet and knowing. 21. 'White Teeth Teens' – Pure Heroine It's a decent song, with a certain quiet anger. It would be better surrounded by different songs to make it feel more cohesive, but there's something aching about the vocals throughout which works well. 20. 'Glory and Gore' – Pure Heroine Musically this song is very listenable. Lyrically paired with the music…it feels like someone putting on a play about bloodlust more than the real thing. Maybe it's supposed to? Whatever, I still like it. 19. 'Perfect Places' – Melodrama As a single, 'Perfect Places' sounds like easily digestible pap that a politician could claim as their favourite song. As an album closer, it's transformed, providing not a perfect resolution but the beginnings of dawn after the hectic and emotional night out of Melodrama. 18. 'Homemade Dynamite' – Melodrama This has a certain soaring quality to it and the intro sounds sinister, which is cool. But I always remain quite aware that this is a song someone has written and recorded; I can't lose myself in it. 17. 'Team' – Pure Heroine Maybe it's the name, but this song does sometimes make me feel like I'm getting told to throw my hands up in the air, which – as she says! – dulls my enthusiasm for it. It's still pretty singable though. 16. 'Writer in the Dark' – Melodrama This one gained a reputation for Lorde shushing everyone at her concerts for singing along with her, but it's a good song! She should've recorded it a cappella, like Tracy Chapman's 'Behind The Wall'; it works best as an unadorned solo line and I can see why she wants to perform it that way. 15. 'What Was That' – Virgin This feels like an echo of Melodrama, which gives one a sense of unease – does Lorde think we only like her when she's taking a scalpel to her insides? Nevertheless, like Melodrama it sounds good and has a pulsating urgency. 14. 'Magnets' (with Disclosure) This one is inseparable from one of the best videos she's ever done, a tiny narrative about affairs and domestic violence revenge plots. The song is a bop too. 13. 'Hard Feelings/Loveless' – Melodrama 'Hard Feelings' is so glum (complimentary). I like how she alternates between barely choking the words out and confessing things in a rapid stream so the other person doesn't have time to interject before you say your full piece. 'Loveless' is fine as its other half, lightly angry. 12. 'Tennis Court' – Pure Heroine The video is fun, and even though the lyrics don't touch on it directly, this song feels like Lorde reacting to the sudden fame brought on by 'Royals'. It's also fun to watch her start a chorus meditating on teen archetypes and let it devolve into 'Let's go down to the tennis court, and talk it up like yeah'. Only teenagers have those stirrings of analysis combined with incoherence! 11. 'Ribs' – Pure Heroine I have to be honest, I like 'Ribs' well enough, but as critic Anthony Fantano said, some of the lyrics on Pure Heroine felt a bit limited topically because of Lorde's age, and 'Ribs' does this musically as well. It feels like nostalgia and longing specifically designed for teenagers, and at age 35 it's not for me. It's still good! We've just got better songs to come. 10. 'Green Light' – Melodrama From the moment the piano slams down, we know something's wrong; we're not exactly here to have a bad time, but Lorde has plainly been riddled with angst and needs to vomit it out. At its best, Melodrama wrestles with the tension of how breakups have a misery and yet a heightened energy, the passion of having loved someone even if it went wrong. I don't know that she fully does want that green light, because staying in that pain seems like a way to hold onto the love. 9. 'Man of the Year' – Virgin Lorde said this is the song she's proudest of off Virgin, and deservedly so. She has merged the stripped back sound of Solar Power with the synthy angst of Melodrama, and in this song it's paying off big-time. The main reasons I haven't ranked it higher are mostly because I find the double-tracking vocals slightly grating and because it turns out 'repeat listenability' was an unconscious criterion for my list, and I'm not always in the mood to have my heart ripped out. Lorde says she's cis but 'in the middle gender-wise', which I can relate to as a femme-of-centre person of woman experience whose gender moves around a lot. Cisness and transness are states of being more than rigid identities, exemplified by the shifts she describes ('I'm a woman except for the days when I'm a man'). Temporary dysphoria isn't as hard as the persistent kind, but it's also quite annoying because – since even DIY trans healthcare pioneers haven't invented shape-shifting yet – it means you can't really take any concrete actions about it, or even fully desire them. You could cut your hair short or get top surgery if you know you might want your hair or tits back again in five years, but not when you know you'll probably want them back in two weeks. Does Lorde relate to what I'm saying? Who knows! She got me to write some stuff about gender! There are times of my life when 'Man of the Yea r' and its video, which may beat out 'Magnets', would've made me sob uncontrollably. It makes me want to ask Lorde if she's watched I Saw The TV Glow yet. She's back! 8. '400 Lux' – Pure Heroine She wrote this at age 17, but feeling ennui that's relieved by going out for a drive in your shitty suburban town with someone you love feels universal. I also love that skidding synth in the chorus. Lovely, sweet song. 7. The 'Girl, So Confusing' Remix (with Charli XCX) When I was 24, a friend texted to apologise for loosely standing me up the previous week. Unused to proactive apologies from men, I cautiously replied that yes, it had hurt my feelings. He wrote back, 'All things aside, I value this friendship and clearly I need to put some effort in myself and send it your way. Coffee next week?' The reason I remember almost the exact wording a decade later is because it literally changed my life and helped me become a stronger person. This song and Lorde's verse is that unexpected relief – oh shit, you do care about me, I'm not a burden? – writ large, combined with pain and anger at a misogynist culture and industry. 6. 'Royals' – Pure Heroine The original article about how racist this song is felt exhaustingly Tumblrite, but it was kind of vindicated when Lorde (as I recall) said in an interview that she was using hip hop beats to critique the genre. We say dumb stuff as teens, but I hated seeing the Labour Party use this song in their campaign, and I wish Lorde would make Winz take it off their hold music playlist. Listening purely to the music, however, it's easy to see why 'Royals' was Lorde's breakout hit. The sparse beat, the crescendos and soaring of the chorus, the bemusement at watching plutocrat consumption patterns, it all still feels as compelling and fresh as when she recorded it. 5. 'Sober' – Melodrama This song starts tense and never lets up its sense of dread, except for a brief loosening in the bridge, perfectly capturing the drunk haziness of thinking that hooking up with your ex again is a good idea. A perfect follower to 'Green Light', reaffirming that we're not here to relax. 4. 'Buzzcut Season' – Pure Heroine This is what Lorde does best: songs that feel wide open and full of possibility and poignance, but also like an ordinary experience you might have with your friends. 3. 'Liability' – Melodrama Using Pachelbel's Canon as a base tune allows some of Lorde's best lyrics to shine through on this track. It's also a perfect comedown after 'The Louvre', the mournfulness of sitting in a dark room and letting your heartbreak permeate your entire, disgusted sense of self; not only am I unlovable, but my friends probably all hate me too. And in Lorde's case, this includes her sense of self as a public figure and product – remember all the 'oh my god, how is she only 17 she's practically a savant' gushing of the early 2010s? The second verse burns an audience who dehumanised her as a genius anomaly among teenage girls. Much of the backlash to Solar Power was because of how unrelatable the themes were to her working-class fans. But one night this very week I was sitting in a deserted carpark having a crying meltdown after a fight with a loved one, and 'Liability' came into my head. Thank u, Lorde. 2. 'Supercut' – Melodrama The music builds perfectly from sparse laments to a banger, the theme is relatable in a particularly vulnerable place, the energy of the song captures both the joy and the pain of toxic nostalgia. Perfect pop tune. 1. 'The Louvre' – Melodrama After looking up 'The Louvre', I feel like I may have misread it for years, interpreting it as about inexorably going back for breakup sex and breakup emotions, when as written it's more about the first obsessive stages of a crush. But all throughout 'Homemade Dynamite', I'm waiting for those opening chords of 'The Louvre' to start. The music swells and pulsates and feels open and expansive but never quite releases the tension; the spoken-word bit shouldn't work but somehow completely does. 'Blow all my friendships to sit in hell with you' at once feels startlingly original and deeply familiar. Can you hear the violence? So far, 'The Louvre' is Lorde's best song.


The Spinoff
4 days ago
- The Spinoff
Jacinda Ardern steps back into the global spotlight
As the former PM's memoir hits shelves, Penguin is hoping her enduring star power can turn A Different Kind of Power into a bestseller, writes Catherine McGregor in today's extract from The Bulletin. A different kind of memoir Jacinda Ardern's long-anticipated autobiography, A Different Kind of Power, is officially released today. Framed as a deeply personal account rather than a political exposé, the memoir chronicles Ardern's rise from small-town Morrinsville to global leadership – and her abrupt, self-authored exit from the world stage. The book's launch has been accompanied by a major international publicity push. Ardern has appeared on CBS's Sunday Morning show, sat down for a reflective interview with The Guardian, and featured on the mega-popular The Rest is Politics podcast. At home, she's been interviewed by Seven Sharp's Hilary Barry and the NZ Herald's Kim Knight, among others. The media blitz is not just about selling copies, but reinforcing Ardern's core message: that kindness, empathy and even self-doubt have a place in leadership. More personal warmth than political revelation Early reviews suggest that A Different Kind of Power offers plenty of feeling but not a lot of drama. Frances Stead Sellers of The Washington Post (paywalled) praises the memoir as a 'clear and compelling case for compassion' that suffers at times from 'its author's earnestness', while The Post's editor Tracy Watkins describes the book as emotionally resonant but light on backroom revelations – especially when it comes to a post-mortem on pandemic decision-making. 'If, like me, you're looking for fresh insights, or signs of regret over some of the decisions her government made, you may be disappointed,' Watkins writes. Newsroom's Steve Braunias, in the most deeply read and incisive review so far, is more generous. Like other reviewers, he comments on Ardern's sometimes cloying focus on empathy throughout the book – but also highlights a 'pitiless' nine-page section on a certain New Zealand politician. 'Ardern introduces him to an American public who had hitherto never heard of the vainglorious sap and parades him as the villain of A Different Kind of Power,' he writes. Today is probably a very bad day to be former Labour leader David Cunliffe. A big bet for Penguin Commercially, A Different Kind of Power is a major gamble. According to a fascinating story, again by Steve Braunias at Newsroom, Penguin is rumoured to have paid Ardern an advance of $1.5 million, meaning the book will need to sell at least 140,000 copies globally to break even. Publishing experts believe it's possible, particularly with Australian rights in play and a high-profile North American book tour scheduled. Braunias speaks to writer and book editor Paula Morris, who points out that the advance may also include Ardern's upcoming children's book, Mum's Busy Work, due out in September, which will make earning it back a far easier task. Comparisons are already being drawn to Spare by Prince Harry, which reportedly required 500,000 print sales to recover its costs. As with Harry, Ardern is a polarising figure, and that may well help drive both publicity and sales. (As an aside, Newsroom is the place to be for Ardern-book completists this week, with not one but three reviews scheduled, from Braunias, Janet Wilson and Tim Murphy.) Not the first Ardern book, and not the last word This isn't the first time Ardern's life has been turned into reading material. Jacinda Ardern: A New Kind of Leader by The Spinoff's own Madeleine Chapman was a bestseller, as was Michelle Duff's Jacinda Ardern: The Story Behind An Extraordinary Leader, which in 2019 inspired the bizarre #TurnArdern campaign. The Covid-era tome Jacinda Ardern: Leading with Empathy earned a withering review from Toby Manhire, who said that 'it was written by two authors trying hard to tell the story of a country without visiting it'. At the time, Ardern said it was 'awkward' to have her life story told via unauthorised biography – perhaps she was thinking about her own authorised version even then. Ardern's book won't be the last word, either. Her story has also been told in Prime Minister, a feature documentary about Ardern's time in office, co-directed by Michelle Walshe and Lindsey Utz. While no NZ release date has been confirmed, it will play in this year's NZ International Film Festival. Outside of the NZIFF programmers, few people here have yet seen the film, but a close reading of the trailer by The Spinoff's Alex Casey reveals mic drop, teary moments, and many obligatory Aotearoa-landscape drone shots.