Jordan Oosterhof, left, and Tim Roth in Punch (Dark Star Pictures)

Welby Ings’s debut feature Punch is a dingy, overcast portrait of rural New Zealand life, teeming with themes of masculinity, angst, and sexual exploration. It is an imperfect film, but a hard one to knock too hard for its sensitive perspectives.

Jordan Oosterhof’s Jim, a promising boxer in his late teens, has a fireplug build—with taut abs, large biceps, and wide shoulders. The film eroticizes him, as he is shown mostly shirtless throughout—landing swift jabs against his punching bag or sprinting nude toward the ocean after a sweaty run. His burgeoning, closeted feelings for an outcast high school classmate, Whetu (Conan Hayes), slowly develop, until a tryst forces them to make decisions about one another and their future.

Yet pockets of hate exist, even among the lush countryside of a seemingly socially progressive country. Whetu, who is not beholden to stereotypical gender norms and also Maori, is cruelly ridiculed by his fellow schoolmates, and lives on his own in a small shack near the shore. Hayes’s complex performance is the highlight. He is tender and effective, attuned to the mannerisms and occasional bluntness of his visibly and symbolically marginalized character.

Punch is often under the shadow of the imposing turn by Tim Roth, as Jim’s alcoholic father, a former boxer who is relentlessly overbearing and pushy regarding his son’s training and first professional fight. Roth plays these kinds of unsettled, unsavory characters deftly, including in the recent Sundown, but as written here by Ings, Roth’s liquor-slugging Stan is somewhat predictable and clichéd, save for a more ambivalent-than-expected implied attitude toward Jim’s sexuality. His line, "You’re my boy. I know you’re good," could be inferred as a belief in his son’s athletic abilities and a sense of support and tacit acceptance. Here and there the dialogue can be groan-inducing, even if spoken by a teen riddled with disquiet ("You punch and punch and punch but… It doesn’t change anything."). Mercifully, this is offset by Whetu’s stony-eyed naturalism and his intermittent venomous retorts, obviously coming from a well of hurt.

The cinematography by Matt Henley evocatively captures Jim’s dour, earth-toned, dimly lit practice space, as well as the wind-swept greenery, sand, and sea salt-soaked textures of the West New Zealand landscapes. The eventual big fight scene is shot so shadowy—it barely registers—as if to communicate Jim’s nightmarish visions of and repulsion from the sport. The shots falter, however, whenever they go for unsteadiness, garish sun flares, and mawkish slow-motion, which is, unfortunately, too often. Similarly, Ings’s movie is incisive, but when it takes dramatic swings, such as a subplot involving sexual assault and everything that unspools thereafter, it feels put-on, as if straining for emotional resonance. A more streamlined, simplified tale between Jim and Whetu might have been more impactful. Otherwise, there is much precision and sweetness to be mined here.

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