Escaping Utopia shines a new light on the true darkness of Gloriavale (2024)

Kia ora and welcome back to Rec Room for another glorious week. We’ve been showered by a steady stream of new and exciting content lately, including the new movie from New Zealand director Lee Tamahori and the all-star drama series Feud: Capote vs The Swans. I was once attacked by a swan (a real one, not a New York socialite from the 1960s), but I was very brave and watched the first episode and agree with everything Anna Rawhiti-Connell said in her review. Who knew Truman Capote and I had so much in common? Better living, everyone. / Tara Ward

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TVNZ’s new docuseries Escaping Utopia is not an easy watch, but a necessary one

Pilgrim Christian is driving along a gravel road in the dead of night. He’s heading towards Gloriavale, and as he approaches a small one lane bridge, he slows down. This bridge marks a line between his two very different worlds. Christian grew up in Gloriavale as one of founder Neville Cooper’s 16 children, but was exiled seven years ago. Though his wife and children still live there, Christian now spends his days helping people escape the place he once called home.

Christian drives up to a milk shed and sneaks in, a stack of A4 papers in his hand. He’s holding leaflets that warn about the dangers of cults, which he quickly stuffs into lockers and drawers. His son works in this shed, and smuggling these messages in is a small but vital act of defiance. It’s a way of connecting with his family in the hope they will reach out for help. “Doing nothing is not the answer,” Christian says. “If nobody does anything, these people aren’t going to get free.”

It’s only the opening moments of Escaping Utopia, and already my heart is in my mouth. This intensely compelling new three-part docuseries takes us behind the scenes of what it’s like to live in – and leave – Gloriavale. The extreme religious sect has been a source of public curiosity for years, and this isn’t the first television show about life there. Escaping Utopia will certainly satisfy people’s curiosity about Gloriavale, but it takes us far beyond the bonnets and butter churning and into a much darker reality. It will enrage and upset you, and break your heart several times over.

The first episode leaves us in no doubt about the damage Gloriavale has caused. It speaks to a variety of people who have first hand experience of the community, like Rosanna, who gives an insight into the controlled lives of Gloriavale women. We meet Marcus, a farmer whose property backs onto Gloriavale and who acts as a conduit for those wanting to escape, and Melanie Reid, the 60 Minutes journalist who went undercover into Gloriavale in 1993 and recounts her strange and scary experience (which leads to a fantastic cliffhanger).

The documentary also speaks with current members of Gloriavale, who we’re told are risking their place in their community by speaking out, to help us understand why people join and why they stay. People like Sharon, who joined Gloriavale in 1971 and tells of slowly losing her identity, and Boaz, who wants to leave to protect his children. It’s clear that getting out is not simple, particularly if Gloriavale is all you know. The remoteness of Gloriavale isn’t the main barrier to escaping; the psychological shackles are far more difficult to break free from.

The documentary itself is quiet and steady, because there’s no need to embellish or over-dramatise these powerful stories. There are uncomfortable moments, and the bravery of those who have escaped and the underground network of people who help them is inspiring. There’s also a lot of extraordinary archival footage from the early days of Gloriavale, which takes us inside the community and shows how the original utopian vision became more and more extreme and destructive over the five decades that followed.

Episode one of Escaping Utopia is not an easy watch, but it is a necessary one. By using archival footage and powerful, personal testimonies, the documentary packs an emotional punch in exposing an oppressive world ruled by fear, control, and abuse. Christian may have driven through Gloriavale under the cover of darkness, but Escaping Utopia shines a new light on the devastating realities of this hidden world.

Escaping Utopia premieres on TVNZ1 on Sunday 24 March at 8.30pm and streams on TVNZ+. A review of all three episodes of Escaping Utopia will appear on The Spinoff next week.

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Why you should watch: The Convert

The Spinoff’s Tommy de Silva checked out the new film by New Zealand director Lee Tamahori, and reckons it’s a must-watch for fans of local history. The Convert is set in Aotearoa in the 1830s, as a lay preacher (played by Mike from Neighbours, aka Guy Pearce) arrives at a British settlement and becomes embroiled in an inter-hapū conflict. The film also stars Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne (Cousins, Whina) as Rangimai, daughter of the rangatira of one of the warring hapū.

“It’s worth a watch for its acting, fantastically-choreographed fight scenes, integration of te reo Māori and, in particular, the fascinating time period it brings to the fore. Capturing a chapter from our past rarely before seen in local popular culture makes The Convert a must-see for both period-piece purists and New Zealand history nerds alike.”

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Meet three Pacific youth enchanted by K-pop in K-POLYS, The Spinoff’s new one-off documentary that presents three intimate portraits of young people drawn between cultures. Boba has loved K-pop since they were eight. Ethan dances to express his emotions, and K-pop is a bridge that connects him to others. Ashley has been into K-pop since 2009, when it rekindled her love of dance. The three are K-polys – Polynesian K-pop fans.K-pop began as a musical genre in South Korea in the 1990s and has grown into a global cultural phenomenon. It’s associated with dancing, fashion, and a dedicated fan community. Here, K-polys have found freedom of expression and belonging. Made with the support of NZ On Air.

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Why you should watch: Feud: Capote and The Swans (Neon)

Anna Rawhiti-Connell recommends Ryan Murphy’s second season of Feud, a sumptuous drama set in the 1960s about the bitter feud between American writer Truman Capote and a group of upper class New York women known as “the swans”. When the swans discover Capote has mined their secrets and exposed them in his writing, they band together to freeze him out. It features an all-star cast that includes Naomi Watts, Chloë Sevigny, Calista Flockhart, Demi Moore and an unrecognisable Tom Hollander as Capote.

“It’s beautiful, with no detail spared in revealing the literal interior worlds of three decades of New York high society life,” Rawhiti-Connell writes. “Actors playing real people always start at a disadvantage, but the cast – Hollander, Sevigny and Watts in particular – deliver more than enough to avoid death by a thousand comparisons. Departing from Murphy’s pacier and more sensationalist retellings of true life stories, it benefits from sitting with the misery and sadness. It could have been gossipy plot points, high drama, great costumes and climatic performances from a cast of divas. Instead, it is a tragedy in several acts that delivers a verdict: the risk Capote took as a writer in observing the highest echelons didn’t pay off.”

The Spinoff pop culture links of the week

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Why you should watch: I’m Sorry For Your Loss (TVNZ+)

I’m Sorry For Your Loss premiered on Facebook Watch back in 2018, but it recently returned to our screens on TVNZ+. If you missed it the first time around, this is a great chance to watch the American drama that accurately captures the complexities of loss, with Elizabeth Olsen playing a wife mourning the sudden death of her husband.

Back in ye olde 2018, The Spinoff’s Sam Brooks described it as a delicately rendered, thoughtful tackling of grief. “Sorry For Your Loss has an almost documentary feel of watching someone grieve,” he wrote. “One, the characters feel like they’ve actually existed together before the cameras started rolling; and two, the show feels like the experience of someone who knows what it’s like to grieve, and to observe somebody else going through the same thing.”

You might also like:

  • Netflix’s slick new sci-fi series 3 Body Problem has been impressing viewers. Based on Liu Cixin’s best-selling novel (and starring New Zealand actor Jess Hong), the drama follows a group of scientists who are working out why the laws of nature have gone all wonky. Turns out, they’re about to be invaded by aliens. “The series portrays a fictional past, present and future wherein Earth encounters an alien civilization from a nearby system of three sun-like stars orbiting one another, in an example of the three-body problem in orbital mechanics,” Netflix tells us.

  • Palm Royale (Apple TV+) is a mix of White Lotus and Mad Men, and I’m here for every delicious moment. Kristen Wiig, Alison Janney, Carol Burnett and Ricky Martin (!) star in this colourful comedy-drama about a woman prepared to do whatever it takes to be accepted into an exclusive and glitzy Palm Beach society.

  • If you’re looking for a really dark comedy, try Obituary (TVNZ+). It’s an Irish series about a woman who writes obituaries for her local paper and who gets paid per article. When business dies down, she’s forced to take matters into her own hands – think Dexter meets Bad Sisters.

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Escaping Utopia shines a new light on the true darkness of Gloriavale (2024)

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