Based on the 2010 Pike River mine disaster, Pike River, directed by Robert Sarkies and starring Melanie Lynskey and Robyn Malcolm, is centered around the victims’ families, particularly Anna Osborne, the wife of contractor Milton Osborne, and Sonya Rockhouse, mother of young miner Benjamin Rockhouse. While the internet will give you information on the explosion and the recovery operation, the film focuses on human relationships, the effect that such a disaster has on family members, and the incredible courage, strength, and determination demonstrated by Anna Osborne and Sonya Rockhouse, who refused to accept defeat and protested against the government’s decision to stop recovery operations altogether.
Spoiler Alert
How did Anna and Sonya become friends?
Anna and Sonya started off on the wrong foot. Anna suspected that Sonya’s ex-husband, Neville, the health and safety manager, knew that the mine wasn’t in operational condition, yet he chose to side with the company. So, when he showed up at a meeting where the victims’ families met with a lawyer to discuss if they could take any steps against Pike River, Anna was furious. Sonya tried to explain that he too had lost a son, but Anna figured that he didn’t do enough when he could’ve. Sonya gradually realized that Anna was right; Neville should have warned their son, considering he was well aware that the condition of the mines was critical.
That was the beginning of Anna and Sonya’s friendship. At a time when Anna struggled to explain to her children why she had to be so involved in the recovery mission, Sonya became her safe space. Anna had advised Milton to take the day off (the night before the incident) since he wasn’t doing well, but he’d insisted on going. The families were hopeful that at least a few out of the 29 men might make it after the first explosion, but when there was a second explosion, it became clear that there was no way the men would manage to survive. Accepting the reality was challenging for both Anna and Sonya.
Anna, a cancer survivor who’d recently discovered that she’d relapsed, had thought that her husband would be there to look after her children when she would be gone. But now, she didn’t really know how to make sense of the reality. She was resolute that she wouldn’t rest until she buried her husband’s remains. The company official made it clear that as a result of the dangerous condition at the moment, they didn’t intend on sending men for the recovery mission into the mine. The families at first agreed to wait, but when they didn’t hear about any progress, they realized that the company didn’t really have a plan.
Pike River emphasizes how the unexpected loss had affected every aspect of Anna and Sonya’s lives. Sonya was in a loving relationship with Pete, a ‘soundie’ for bands. He tried his best to be supportive of Sonya, but the pain and the constant feeling of emptiness that she experienced were impossible for her to communicate. It wasn’t a state of mind that she could just snap out of, and there were days when she felt completely helpless. Pete decided to end their relationship at one point, though towards the end, he admitted that he was still in love with her, and they eventually got over their differences and ended up together. Pete had always advised Sonya to get out there and seek justice instead of internalizing her misery, and in the end, when he saw her taking to the road for the sake of her son, he felt extremely proud of her.
Anna’s personal life too was a mess. She had to take chemotherapy, attend the court hearings, and plan strategies to put pressure on the authorities to conduct the recovery operations, and amidst it all, she couldn’t make time for her children. Her kids wondered if Anna loved her deceased husband more than them, and Anna had tried to explain that she would have put up the same fight if her children had been in a similar position. She knew that maybe all that remained of Milton was just a few bones, but she wanted to find him because it was evidence and it would help her better understand his death. During the ending of Pike River, her daughter, Alisha, shared with her mother the news of her pregnancy, and Anna was overjoyed. The cycle of life continued, and she tried to be as present as she could be for Alisha and Rob.
What happened to Peter Whittall?
The families of the victims at first trusted the company to bring back the remains of the deceased, but their inaction resulted in frustration. Five days after the explosion, the families decided to consult a lawyer to demand the right answers. A commission of inquiry was also set up to find out what had actually happened, to prevent such misfortune in the future. According to testimonies, there was only one toilet for 60 men working underground, and most of the workers had no choice but to dig holes to relieve themselves. A shift deputy had warned several times months before the explosion that there were ‘the fire and safety hazards, inadequate ventilation, inadequate leadership, and inadequate work standards,’ but the company didn’t care to fix the issues. The gas sensors were damaged, and they gave inaccurate readings; there had been 20 incidents of excessive methane release, and yet the company didn’t take any action.
Peter Whittall, the owner of the company, had repeatedly spoken about the fresh air base, a supposed safe place for the men working underground that apparently had self-rescuers and a first-aid kit. But as it turned out, Whittall had never personally checked the fresh air base, and according to Daniel Rockhouse (Sonya’s son, who’d survived), who’d been there before he managed to make it out of the mine, he had found an empty shipping crate, an opening clouded by toxic smoke, and no self-rescuers. The inquiry commission came to the conclusion that the mine was unsafe and dangerous, and that Pike River Coal Ltd didn’t fulfil their duty to ensure the safety of their men. Later, a woman whose husband used to work at Pike River handed over a flash drive to Anna that consisted of surveillance footage from inside the mine. According to the video evidence, there were dead bodies and belongings of the deceased inside the mine, and the families became all the more resolute to pressure the authorities to start a recovery operation. Prime Minister John Key supported the families and was ready to consider a re-entry plan. But that never really came through. Anna had put up a banner to put pressure on John Key, but the rest of the victims’ families thought it was too aggressive. Although they eventually came to realize that without an aggressive stance, their voices would be repressed.
A criminal case was filed against Peter Whittall, but he was allowed to walk away without any charges after he ‘voluntarily’ agreed to pay $3.41 million to the families. Anna and Sonya refused to accept the compensation; they didn’t care about the money, they wanted the man who was responsible for the loss of 29 lives to be put behind bars. Helen Kelly (the character is completely based on the late Helen Kelly), the president of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, supported Anna and Sonya’s decision to not give up. The money that Whittall had offered was mostly corporate insurance that he received after his men died on the job. Their advocate had already advised them that they would lose significant money if the case failed, because it was going to be a long-drawn-out one. But if they won, a ruling in law in the name of Osborne and Rockhouse (that would state that offering money in exchange for justice is unlawful and should never happen again) would be upheld. Their application was eventually dismissed, but they decided to appeal once again. The Supreme Court ultimately found the decision to let Peter Whittall walk away without any charges unlawful, and the ‘Osborne and Rockhouse appeal was upheld.’
How did Anna and Sonya manage to restart the recovery operation?
When the government officials announced that they would not go ahead with the re-entry plan, and were instead considering the possibility of building a park with a trail dedicated to the 29 men, the families were deeply offended, and Anna didn’t mince her words and made it very clear that they wouldn’t allow them to simply seal the mine with cement and expect the families to forget about their loved ones. The thought that tourists would be walking on the graves of the helpless men didn’t comfort them; rather, it left them unsettled and disgusted. Later, when most of the families accepted the ‘track’ proposal, Anna and Sonya decided to stage a protest on the road that led to the mine to stop the truck carrying cement to seal the mine. Their protest gained public attention. Television and radio channels started reporting on the issue; a documentary filmmaker who’d been following the duo had also arranged a social media team who campaigned for their cause, and it had become quite evident that the people were on Anna and Sonya’s side. Sonya, who’d always wanted to stay out of the public eye, finally figured that there was no running away. She was doing it for her son, and she wanted the world to know how the law and the government had failed them.
During Pike River’s ending, when Allied Concrete, the cement company that was supposed to seal the entrance, learned about the protest, they too decided to support Anna and Sonya, and chose not to send their trucks over to the mine. This win was significant for the duo; they realized that they were not alone, and there were people all over the country and even abroad supporting them. After John Key stepped down as the prime minister, Anna and Sonya figured they still had hope. They requested the families of the victims to sign their petition that they wanted to present to the opposing party, who were likely to form the next government.
What does the ending suggest?
Sonya, Anna, and Bernie Monk (the father of a victim) together approached the opposition parties to consider their proposal on re-entering the mine. They even approached Jacinda Ardern, who went on to become Prime Minister of New Zealand, and she’d been extremely supportive of Sony and Anna and had promised to bring them justice.
In Pike River’s ending, Sonya and Anna celebrated the election of the coalition government; after seven years, they finally saw a ray of hope again. The strangers-turned-acquaintances-turned-best-friends Sonya and Anna couldn’t thank each other enough; Sonya believed that Anna was ‘the good thing’ that happened to her, and Anna reciprocated the same. They didn’t have to express it in words, but they always knew what the other was going through, and even when their families failed to understand them, they stood by each other. They knew that others might not completely make sense of their goal, but to them, bringing home Ben and Milton, even if it was just bones and dust, was all that they ever wanted. They needed closure, and they had been desperately searching for it.
The Pike River Recovery Agency was ultimately formed, and their purpose was to come up with a safe re-entry plan. The evidence collected upon re-entry resulted in the launch of a major criminal investigation; the families are hopeful that justice will be served and Whittall will be prosecuted. Sonya and Anna were allowed to walk 30 m into the mine; they finally got the chance to be a little closer to the ones they lost. Safety was an issue when it came to re-entering the mine, and the Pike River Recovery Agency went up to 2.26 km, and upon the recent drilling of boreholes, a total of twelve bodies have been located. Sonya and Anna’s fight was against a system that attempted to hush up a serious criminal offense, and it was their sheer determination that created pressure on authorities, and they made it impossible for them to simply ignore their plea.
