Heart of the Stag

Heart of the Stag proved director Michael Firth could handle drama as well as documentary, following his Oscar-nominated ski film Off the Edge. Bruno Lawrence stars as Peter Daley, a shepherd on domineering Robert Jackson's (Terence Cooper) remote farm, who starts to suspect that Jackson is sexually abusing his adult daughter Cathy (Mary Regan). Cathy is trapped caring for her disabled mother, while Daley hunts for a way to help her. Metro voted it the best Kiwi film of 1984, while a New York Times review said of the film's director and scriptwriter, "Only their mothers might love what they've done."