The Insatiable Moon (M)

Down and out in Ponsonby doesn’t have the ring about it that it had 30 years ago, but The Insatiable Moon makes a colourful dramatic plea for the continued existence of halfway houses in a part of the city better known for curbside dining. A chance encounter between Sara Wiseman’s social worker and charismatic, barefooted self-proclaimed Second Son of God Arthur (Rawiri Paratene) entwines with the fate of the lodgers in a Ponsonby boarding house as real estate agents, TV current affairs, neighbourhood watch, health bureaucrats and a helpless vicar take sides around the underhand campaign to throw them out. Divine madness and down-to-earth compassion are at the heart of producer, and former Ponsonby minister, Mike Riddell’s script. Directed by his partner Rosemary Riddell, The Insatiable Moon’s splendid cast (including Ian Mune) endows the household of psychiatric patients and low-income tenants with individual gnarliness and touching esprit de corps.