We Were Dangerous begins so strongly and so confidently that it promises to take a grim but familiar period movie trope — the victimization of vulnerable young women in an authoritarian, male-dominated, post-war Christian world — and turn it inside out, mining it for deadpan, absurdist comedy instead of political outrage and focusing on the unexpectedly deep and moving friendships that can be made even in the darkest of situations. Frustratingly, it never quite comes together as the wry, subversive coming-of-age movie that it might have been, but the performances are powerful enough in Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu’s debut that its emotional heft is surprisingly indelible.
