Justin Kurzel - 'Ellis Park' movie review (2025)

Move over Dave Grohl, there’s a new nicest man in music. In Ellis Park, Bad Seeds mainstay Warren Ellis takes the intrinsically self-indulgent form of the memoir and uses it for good as the documentary becomes less about him and more of an inter-species study of sentimentality, belonging, rescue and deliverance.

Before 2022, Warren Ellis wasn’t much more than the intense musical figure who shared the stage with Nick Cave. After joining the Bad Seeds in 1997, his position in the group grew and grew in authority to the point of co-captaining the ship and even going beyond that as Warren and Cave have collaborated on a number of other projects. But despite being an essential corner of the act, it never felt like he had the celebrity of Cave or that fans in his crowd knew his story.

His memoir, Nina Simone’s Gum, changed that in an incredibly beautiful way. What begins as the silly yet emotive story of Ellis clamouring on stage at the Southbank Centre and stealing his idol’s gum off her piano before spending decades carrying it around with him like a talisman is extended into a thorough look into Ellis’ life, origins, passion, and personality. It’s impossible to read the book and not come away liking Ellis as sweetness pours off every page.

When Ellis Park begins, there’s a sense that this is kind of the unofficial adaptation of that memoir. A statue of the gum makes an appearance early to set the film’s motivation; Ellis is going to deliver this piece of artwork, travelling from his hometown to Sumatra to do so. But the destination is where the documentary becomes bigger than its central figure. Ellis is travelling to Sumatra, to the wildlife sanctuary he founded and provided a major sponsorship to open.

It’s a random caveat to Ellis’ career that could have just existed as a fun fact in his biography, but the decision to use this film to draw attention to it, with the subject dipping between the musician’s life and sequences about animal abuse, animal trafficking trades and the vital work the Park are doing, proves not only how important it is to Ellis, but that he recognises that even at his relatively niche level of fame, he can use it for good.

However, just like his book and just like anything connected to Cave and Ellis, it’s handled with a high level of artistry and an incredible score. It’s cinematically stunning, with both the shots of Ellis’ elderly parents at home and the workers in the park handled with the same aesthetic care as sequences of the musician performing by a glorious statue or the vast, lush landscapes of both Australia and Sumatra. It’s also pieced together with a keen awareness that’s at once both unified but not overdone.

It would have been easy for this to feel cheesy, with some point about a rockstar being like a wild animal or whatever. But instead, it’s subtle. Ellis talks about the park without needing to attach it to himself and force his name to be constantly tied to the experts’ work there. But in moments where Ellis contemplates his own past addictions, his enduring friendship with Cave, and even his father’s reconnection with music after years of putting his passion aside for family, an overarching emotional concept emerges that says that people and animals deserve second chances: people and animals deserve rescue, support and a chance at joy.

You would have to be a certain type of evil to watch a film about animal abuse and a park saving them and not get a little emotional. But the woven threads of the kind of Ellis biopic and the animal documentary make Ellis Park unique and interesting. Just like in his book, Ellis comes across as just the nicest guy ever as he interacts with every person in this film with such incredible kindness and genuine interest. He feels like exactly the kind of person that should be platformed, on stage and on big screens, as he shares his glory with a greater good.

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