Eagle vs Shark

Taika Waititi's first feature is an offbeat comedy about two misfits trying to find love. Lily (Loren Taylor from movie Existence) is a shy fast-food cashier with a crush on clueless gaming geek Jarrod (Jemaine Clement). When Lily crashes Jarrod's fancy dress party in a shark costume, she impresses the self-styled 'Eagle Lord' with her gaming prowess — excerpted here. But the budding romance is sorely tested by Jarrod's obsession with a childhood nemesis. Empire called the film "a comic delight destined for cult adoration". Watch interviews with the cast and crew after the excerpt, and read this backgrounder. 

This debut feature, occasionally arch but consistently affecting, shares the deadpan esthetic of Napoleon Dynamite and Ghost World ... Yet Eagle vs Shark has its own distinctive style, partly thanks to whimsical little interludes of animation, but mainly because it ties blithe absurdity to a rock bed of emotional truth.

– Reviewer Joe Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal, 15 June 2007

Key Cast & Crew

Cliff Curtis

Producer

Adam Clark

Cinematographer

Loren Taylor

Story, Casting, As: Lily

Jemaine Clement

As: Jarrod

Ainsley Gardiner

Producer

Taika Waititi

Director, Writer, Casting, As: Gordon (Jarrod's brother)