The Insatiable Moon

2010

1h 41m

Drama

List

75%

Tomatometer

8 Reviews

65%

Audience Score

100+ Ratings

Arthur, a self-proclaimed son of God, sets off on a mission to find the Queen of Heaven.

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Peter Bradshaw

Guardian

A pleasant movie, if naive and underpowered.

Rated: 2/5

Mar 3, 2011

Full Review

Nev Pierce

Empire Magazine

Real and rewarding.

Rated: 4/5

Feb 28, 2011

Full Review

Graham Young

Birmingham Mail

A welcomely different film about outsiders trying to maintain their place in society.

Rated: 3/5

May 6, 2011

Full Review

Roz Laws

Birmingham Post

Has its flaws but is watchable enough.

Rated: 3/5

May 4, 2011

Full Review

Alistair Harkness

Scotsman

There's an amateurish, community theatre vibe to this well-intentioned but simplistic, nave, occasionally dubious New Zealand comedy-drama about faith, God and mental illness.

Rated: 2/5

Mar 28, 2011

Full Review

Sloan Freer

Radio Times

Though its climax feels abrupt and underdeveloped, the film's overall power and emotion continue to resonate.

Rated: 3/5

Mar 3, 2011

Full Review

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Audience Member

low production lifetime cheese for an older generation but it is bad.

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

01/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Interesting idea, decently filmed. Just not my idea of a good plot.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

02/15/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Good Sunday evening movie : mood relaxing

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/19/23

Full Review

Mike M

Its heart's in the right place; it's the rest of it that's out to lunch... Riddell scrapes together the footage she can from in and about the same suburban row of shops, but the detail's sloppy - much of the film unfolds around a halfway house where the manager curses incessantly and leaves his cleavers unattended on going to answer the phone - and if she was intending to throw a spotlight on the sorry state of mental health care in small-town New Zealand, she could do with easing up on the broad comedy, singing and dancing that tends to drown out her most salient points. Paratene - known to British audiences as the forbidding tribal elder in "Whale Rider" - is a watchable, likable presence forced into a cutesy character straitjacket: it sounds funny to say a son of God role is beneath him, but as conceived by the Riddells, it is; the remainder is serenely simple-minded - real cinema du Gump - and blessed with rather too much divine intervention where the narrative intelligence would usually go.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

03/06/11

Full Review

Audience Member

Insatiable Moon is a gem of a movie from New Zealand. I fell in love with it and most of the characters who are wonderfully well developed and utterly convincing. It's one of those films that elicits tears, laughter and everything in between. I found it uplifting, inspiring and very entertaining. Insatiable Moon is about real people in real life with no 'air-brushing'. It should carry a warning - this film may change your life as it challenges values in its presentation of conflict between traditional inner city dwellers and the newbies who want to sanitise and gentrify the area - in this case Ponsonby, Auckland, New Zealand though it's a universal story. Love you, moon; love you, Arthur.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/13/23

Full Review

Audience Member

My friends all rave about this film; being of a contrary-nature l often find such enthusiastic recommendations rather a put-off, but l have to admit it's really entertaining, funny and warmly-human. Made on a shoestring, it looks a little rough around the edges at times, but the performances are all perfect, especially Rawiri Paratene ("Whalerider) as the central character. Its a New Zealand film, with some great insights into Maori culture, but the theme, the setting and the humour are universal. Don't get put off by the 'mental illness' tag - its a really entertaining film that left even this grumpy old man leaving the cinema with a spring in his step.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/15/23

Full Review

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Rosemary Riddell

Director

Sara Wiseman

Margaret

Ian Mune

Norm

Rawiri Paratene

Arthur

Bruce Phillips

Digby

Matthew Chamberlain

Tony

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Last Days in the Desert

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Synopsis

Arthur, a self-proclaimed son of God, sets off on a mission to find the Queen of Heaven.

Director: Rosemary Riddell
Producer: David Ball, Tim Sanders
Screenwriter: Mike Riddell
Genre: Drama
Original Language: Unknown language
Release Date (Streaming): Nov 20, 2016
Runtime: 1h 41m

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