THEGAYUK

Tag: Movie Genre Drama

All movie reviews for films in the Drama genre

  • FILM REVIEW | Ida

    ★★★★★ | Ida

    It’s hard to decide exactly what period this new cinematic masterpiece from Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski is set in with its austere dramatic settings that look like they have remained unchanged for centuries. This unforgiving bleak countryside that seems to have escaped any attempt at modernization is in fact 1962 but you have this sinking feeling that this part of rural post-war Poland is probably still exactly the same today.

    Ida is an 18-year-old Novice at a large decaying rather remote Convent and is just about to take her final Vows. The Convent has been her home since she had been abandoned as an orphaned baby, but now the Mother Superior tells her that she does, in fact, have one living relative, an Aunt who she should go visit before she makes her ultimate commitment to God.

    She has two major shocks awaiting her at the end of her long bus journey when she finally meets her Aunt. Not only does she discover that she is Jewish by birth, but she also quickly realises that her Aunt, is a former high-ranking Communist Party Public Prosecutor who has transgressed into an alcoholic chain-smoking woman who seems to bed every man she meets. The sheltered young nun-to-be, however, seems to take it all in her stride and announces that she wants to go back to her home village just once and visit her parents grave.

    An initially reluctant Aunt agrees to drive her there, as she needs to prepare Ida for the harsh reality of the situation. The parents had been slaughtered in the Pogrom in the War and even now the local anti-Semitic Communist population are in denial of their complicity as in many cases they then stole the lands left by the murdered Jews. This was the case of her own parents and it took the fearless tenacity of the Aunt to uncover the actual facts.

    Along with their road-trip, they give a lift to a handsome young saxophonist who is en route to play at a Ball in the next town. Ida doesn’t realise at the time that he will turn out to be one of the reasons that she questions her vocation and her ‘calling’ to serve God.

    The tense melodramatic story is as uncompromisingly bleak as the landscape it is set in, and it’s twisting plot lines as both women’s lives unfold in front of our eyes makes for compelling viewing. The reason for their sadness is understandable and the outcome is, therefore, inevitable as neither of them can really carry on as before with the knowledge that they have unleashed.

    It is unquestionable one of the most powerfully moving films of the year to date. Completely stunning on so many levels but even so, it is the superb black & white cinematography that so carefully framed each single shot that took this movie to a whole another level. Faultless award-worthy acting by two sublime actors Agata Trzebuchowska and Agata Kulesza who had great chemistry as the two completely different woman who really had so much in common.

    Completely unmissable.

    P.S. The rather surprising detail about this movie that will undoubtedly go down in the annals of Polish cinema as a national masterpiece, is that it’s director and co-writer Pawel Pawlikowskin was born there but has actually lived and worked in the UK and France most of his life. Interesting then seeing the country, as he must remember it from his own childhood.

  • FILM REVIEW | Reaching For The Moon

    ★★★★★ Reaching For The Moon | Elizabeth Bishop was something of a self-absorbed cold fish. When she finished her tenure as US Poet Laureate in 1950, she was 40 years old, alone in N.Y., and suffering with ‘writers block’. At the suggestion of her friend and fellow poet Robert Lowell she decides to go to South America for a long vacation.

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  • FILM REVIEW | Wish I Was Here

    ★★ | Wish I Was Here

    Aiden is evidently a very lousy actor. He’s so bad that even though he lives in LA he hasn’t managed to score even a bit-part role for some years now.

    He does insist though that he must ‘follow his dream’ and selfishly refuses to give up even though his nearest and dearest must pick up the slack for him. His wife Sarah has a monotonous data-processing job at the Water Company just to put food on their table, and his father pays the fees for the private Jewish school that both of his children, Grace and Tucker, attend. This however now has to change as his father announces that as he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and wants to spend all his money on alternative therapies, he can no longer fund the kids’ schooling.

    Aiden’s response to this new development is to try and get accepted as a charity case at the school hoping they may forgo the fees, and when this fails, decides he will home school the children instead. It’s something that he clearly has no skills for, but then again, it’s obvious that he’s not actually qualified to do much at all beyond attending auditions.

    Pre-teen Grace who is a very earnest honours student wants to continue learning how to become a devout Jew, whereas her younger sibling Tucker would rather play video games than participate in his father’s attempts to teach him anything. Meanwhile, Sarah has to work in a cubicle with a creepy man who insists on talking about what he calls his penis voice and when she complains to her boss, she is just rebuked and told that she should be grateful she even has a job. Aiden’s father’s treatments fail and his health is now declining rapidly and he is desperate to make amends with Aiden’s slacker brother who seems to hate the entire world, except for the cute woman next door. But somehow Aiden still manages to make most of this all about him.

    There are more than a few similarities between Aiden on screen and his creator/writer/director Zach Braff (although Mr Braff is a good actor) as both are well-meaning and full of good intentions but in this movie are ultimately doomed to fall well short of their goals. This comic drama about the angst of a middle-class Jewish family ‘struggling’ in LA is at best mildly amusing, but for the most part is very flat and annoying. The fact that Mr Braff totally funded his sophomore movie from Kickstarter donors may be the clue as to why this rather undisciplined story, free of any Studio input, seems to have allowed him to indulge him in taking swings at many of the things in LA that seem to really peeve him with such an unfunny script.

    There are touches of the disarmingly charming Braff who has delighted audiences in his TV sitcom Scrubs for years, but not even a glimpse of the wit or humour of Woody Allen that he claims to want to aspire too. The high points are the poignant performance by Mandy Patinkin as the father, and a resilient Kate Hudson doing her best with the little she had been given as Sarah.

    After being so enamoured with his debut movie Garden State, a break-out Indie smash ten years ago, I was so looking forward to Braff’s follow-up, and it is just a disappointment then to find it is so less accomplished and enjoyable than one would have expected.

  • FILM REVIEW | Wakolda

    ★★★★ | Wakolda

    In the opening scenes of this historical drama we see a distinguished looking German gentleman accosting a travelling family of five to ask if he may follow behind them as he is unsure about driving alone on the desolate dirt roads in the middle of the vast plains of Patagonia.

    The year is 1960 and they are heading south to the small lakefront town of Bariloche to re-open a Hotel that once was a thriving concern when another generation of the family ran it. The German never reveals much about his own destination or any of his plans for staying in this country far from home.

    When they finally arrive, the German, who the family are learning is either a Doctor or Scientist, insists on renting a room from them and to overcome their reluctance sweetens his request by overpaying as he has sensed that the family is cash poor. Eva the heavily pregnant mother is German speaking, as are so many of the local residents – as the best school in the area was the German one, and she welcomes him into their home. Her husband Enzo is a struggling doll-maker and although a man of few words and simple tastes, he is the only one in the family who is not impressed with the charm onslaught from this very creepy stranger in their midst.

    The ‘Doctor’ is particularly taken by Lilith the 12 year old of the family who has always been much smaller than the norm for her age ever since she was born 2 months premature. Soon he is trying to persuade the parents that with the hormone treatment that he has been working on, he can improve Lilith’s growth rate dramatically. They are all initially reluctant to even consider this course of action but Eva relents after Lilith suffers another brutal day of taunting at her school because of her size. However she insists that they keep the news of this change of heart from Enzo until at least Lilith starts gaining some height.

    Now the ‘Doctor’ has gained Eva’s confidence he turns his attention to her, especially when he discovers that she is going to give birth to twins as we eventually find out that he has some plans of his own for these yet unborn babies.

    This movie from Argentinian filmmaker Lucía Puenzo, adapted from her own novel, never hides the fact that the Doctor is none other than Josef Mengele the notorious Nazi who did barbarous and inhuman genetic experiments on the inmates of Auschwitz earning himself the moniker ‘The Angel of Death.’ This highly believable fiction is based on the fact that after the War he, like so other high-ranking Nazis, fled to South America where he continued his cruel work on pregnant women and children until his death in Brazil in 1979.

    Puenzo slowly unravels her story and builds the tension by insinuating what the Doctor really is up too as he slowly manipulates his way into this family’s lives. It is only the German School Archivist that suspects and confirms his true identity and she is anxious that he is caught and out in trial for his war crimes just like Eichmann who Israelis had recently captured. Unfortunately, as he is protected by a wide network of loyal Party supporters he will always manage to completely avoid this.

    This chilling tale succeeds mainly due to the combination of a convincingly sinister performance by Spanish actor Àlex Brendemühl as the menacing Mengele, and also the bleak remote landscape dramatically captured by cinematographer Nicolás Puenzo, who is also the Director’s brother. This was Argentine’s official submission for Best Foreign Picture Oscar, and although it didn’t end up with a nomination, it was definitely worth a consideration.

  • FILM REVIEW | Obvious Child

    ★★★★★ | Obvious Child

    The movie opens with a very confident Donna in the middle of her stand-up comedy routine in a small nondescript bar in New York. She is extremely funny and disarmingly honest as she talks candidly about the absurdities of her own life.

    The small audience loves it and applaud her enthusiastically when she finishes her Set. All that is except her boyfriend who had been standing at the back of the room listening to a stream of highly personal jokes made at his expense. Then minutes later the two of them are together in a rather busy unisex bathroom and he dumps her. Not for the jokes but because he has been sleeping with her best friend for some time now.

    Suddenly life doesn’t seem quite so funny for this part-time comedian so she takes to her bed with a large bottle of wine and her phone. The more she drinks, the more she leaves a series of ugly voicemails on her (now ex) boyfriends machine.

    Days later she’s back on stage and recounts this new development that resulted in her being a reluctant single again but she is so bitter and angry that she totally alienates the dwindling audience. This calls for more drinking in the bar afterwards and when she is well-plastered allows herself to be picked up by Max a clean-cut preppy business studies graduate who seems a fish-out-water both in this Dive and also in Donna’s bed where he ends up later.

    Fast forward a few weeks and Donna discovers she is pregnant. She knows that the baby is Max’s but, as she tells Nellie her roommate, she doesn’t know how it happened. She was sure they had condoms and that she had even helped Max open the packet, but she was unsure if in their drunken stupor they had actually used them.

    What Donna has no doubts about is that she will have an abortion, but when in a series of coincidences, she keeps running into Max again, she feels an obligation to at least share the news with him. The trouble is she never knows how too. She tries to confide in her puppet-making very supportive father and even in her rather cold micro-managing Professor mother but she fears losing their support. Naturally, when she does break down and break the news they are in her corner anyway and back her choice completely.

    But still left with having to deal with Max, she invites the unsuspecting (and very sweet) man to watch her perform at the Bar the night before the ‘procedure’ is scheduled, the date is February 13th. She is brutally upfront with all the details regarding the unwanted pregnancy and her chosen route and has her slightly shocked audience laughing along with her. Except, Max who runs out into the cold.

    This wonderful, refreshing, heart-breaking comedy that bravely dares to tackle the oft-taboo subject of abortion head on is the work of director and co-writer Gillian Robespierre and is based on the successful short film she had made a few years earlier. Both Donna and Max are very believable characters, thanks to a combination of some excellent writing and great performances, and even though they are so totally opposite on many levels they are a good fit. This is, despite the plot I have outlined so far, a romantic comedy after all. There are still some moments of great pain and struggle as Donna wrestles with the finality of her choice and I think it is also very important to note that even with its very honest and open approach to abortion, no-one in this story treats the subject glibly.

    There is also a rather wonderful unexpected ending that so refreshingly steered cleared of all of the usual cliches but as it includes spoilers I have omitted covering it here.

    This is indie movie making at its best and I loved it now just as much and when I first saw this at Sundance.

  • FILM REVIEW | Man At Bath

    ★ | Man At Bath
    Emmanuel is a man of very few words, a hustler and the live-in lover of Omar.

    They live in an apartment in a tower block in Gennevilliers, a working-class suburb of Paris. When Omar announces that he is going to New York for a week to work on a film project, an angry Emmanuel punishes him by brutally sexually assaulting him. After that, as Omar goes to leave, he tells Emmanuel to move out of the apartment by the time he returns from his trip.

    Emmanuel wiles his way seemingly having sex with half of the men in his neighbourhood, some for money, and others just for the hell of it. It’s hard to tell as he is one very emotionless cold fish. He does have the idea of trying to contact Omar in New York but as he is so detached from real life, he somehow thinks that the only way to do this is by the defunct Telegram system.

    Omar, on the other hand, is traipsing around New York videoing his friend Chiara Mastrioniani (playing herself) promoting her latest movie. Along the way, he manages to pick up a skinny Canadian film student who becomes an obsession for both his sexual appetite and his camera too.

    Despite trying to desperately read between the lines trying to discover any deep or disguised existentialist meaning, that sadly is the total sum of it. The movie is the latest from French filmmaker Christophe Honoré whose somewhat indulgent output in recent years has gone from quite bizarre (Beloved) to downright bad (Let My People Go) and this one fits neatly in both camps.

    I’m not sure if the whole affair was meant to be a vehicle to ‘legitimise’ the gay porn star Francois Sagat’s move into mainstream films because if it was, it was a complete and utter failure. I kept thinking back to Manhola Dargis of The New York Times when she once wrote about Janet Jackson: ‘how can I put it gently? She is a woman of very limited facial expressions!’ Ms Dargis has evidently not seen Mr Sagat on the screen, as he has none!

    When the very short muscular Sagat strips his clothes off every other scene despite his erect penis he fails to imbue the act with any sexuality at all, which doesn’t make this even a half-decent piece of soft porn.

    Evidently, the whole project had been commissioned by the writer/director Olivier Assayas on behalf of the Theatre de Gennevilliers, and Honore took his own inspiration from a local Impressionist painting entitled Man at Bath. The end result is hardly something that would make me want to visit Gennevilliers, or even sit through another Honore movie in the near distant future.

  • FILM REVIEW | Happy Christmas

    Jeff and Kelly are trying are trying to do a balancing act juggling their freelance careers whilst bringing up their 2year old son Jude.

    It’s slightly off kilter right now as Jeff is managing to work on pre-production of his next movie, but Kelly has got writer’s block since she completed her first book so has settled for full-time homemaking for the time being. The couple is however quite happy and things are going along relatively smoothly until they get a holiday visit that shatters their peace and throws the household into disarray.

    The visitor is Jeff’s rather volatile sister Jenny who’s just had a bad breakup with her latest boyfriend and she flies into town for some much needed TLC, in return for helping them out with some childcare. It is soon apparent that self-absorbed Jenny is incapable of looking after herself let alone a small helpless baby. On her first night, she goes to a party with an old friend and gets so totally wasted and passes out that Jeff is forced to go collect her in the middle of the night.

    The next time Jenny gets totally drunk is when she is babysitting young Jude at home and this time she almost manages to burn the whole house down. It then takes a lot of persuading on Jeff’s part to convince his very sceptical wife to give her sister-in-law another chance. Kelly does eventually reluctantly agree and the two women very slowly start to bond. Jenny actually encourages her to her back to writing by telling her to set aside her planned second novel and instead write a sexually explicit trashy novel to make some fast ready money.

    Suddenly Jenny has a purpose too and she looks less likely to self-destruct and even grabs herself a new beau and starts to date the family babysitter (and pot dealer) Kevin and surprisingly looks that she might live happily ever after all. Possibly.

    This is the latest movie from prolific filmmaker Joe Swanberg who as usual directs, writes and stars in it too. I will confess that I am a fan as even when the plots are slight (as this one is) there is a cast of well-rounded characters whose interplay with each other as they cope (and enjoy) their daily existence makes for fascinating viewing. Swanberg injects it all with his own tempered sense of humour, and in this instance is aided by the presence of Lena Dunham playing Carson, Jenny’s best friend. But then he always shrewdly casts his movies with what appear to be his mates Melanie Lynskey as Kelly, Anna Kendrick as Jenny and Mark Webber as Kevin.

    I’m generally on the same page as Charles Laughton when it comes to children in movies, but even I could not help but be seduced by scene-stealing baby Jude played by Swanberg’s own son.

    After last year’s Drinking Buddies this is probably Swanberg’s second most accessible work to date and part of his continued evolving from a filmmaker once known as the king of mumblecore. Long may it continue.

  • FILM: A Man, His Lover and His Mother

    Lorenz Meran is a successful middle-aged gay writer who is struggling with writer’s block when he gets called back home after his elderly mother has a stroke.

    Rosie is a feisty old bird and unlike Lorenz and his perpetually unhappy sibling Sophie, she seems to be the one member of this family who likes to have some fun. A little too much now given the fragile state of her health but whatever happens, she is determined not to give up chain smoking or even admit to the fact that she is an alcoholic.

    The parental home is a small town in eastern Switzerland, a far cry from Lorenz’s hedonistic life in Berlin of one-night stands that he chronicles in his novels, but as his mother’s health declines he very reluctantly finds himself back in the house he never thought he would ever have to live in again. He does, however, have a diversion one night when he has an ‘encounter’ with Mario a grandson of his mother’s friend, but as he dresses and prepares to leave the next morning he discovers that the boy had actually been a big fan of his work for some time. So without discussing it at all, Lorenz panics and hastily dashes off telling a startled Mario that he would never have had sex with him if he had known he was just a groupie.

    The plot unravels slowly as the family are hesitantly drawn together by their mother’s decline, and Sophie has to finally deal with her own failing marriage, and both siblings make the startling discovery that it wasn’t in fact their mother who had been having ‘affairs’ when they were young as they had always suspected, but it had been their overbearing and distant father, now long dead. And all his lovers were in fact men.

    Jaded Lorenz’s humor never seems to lighten as he tries to deal with his impatient Literary Agent from afar, and with sullen Chantal a young neighbor of his mother’s who he suspects is supplying Rosie with alcohol. If that is not enough, at his mother’s insistence, Mario turns up to help doing oddjobs about the house.

    And then just when you are about to despair about this family, Rosie reluctantly but with her usual style, decides to make a go of living in the Seniors home that they forced her into, Sophie gets back with her estranged husband for another reconciliation, and Lorenz stops being angry and suspicious of the world just in time to realise that the long term love of his life that he has always wanted is actually there on his doorstep in the shape of Mario. And to top it all, his writer’s block disappears as he sets about writing his latest novel based on Rosie, and the ‘triangle’ he discovered when he explored his father’s past.

    The movie is the latest work of Swiss gay filmmaker Marcel Gisler (who like Lorenz was born in Altstätten and works in Berlin, however I could not establish if this is an autobiographical piece). Gisler’s movie output is infrequent at best… the last one was 14 years ago… his usual fare are more explicitly gay and complicated, and this one is definitely his most refined and subtlest. Lorenz’s long struggle for happiness is finally determined by resolving the questions that arise from the troubling nightmares he still has about his father, and from being able to accept and enjoy the love of his family simply for what it is.

    It all works… albeit a little drawn out… not just because of the script with its scattered passages of dark humour, but also because of the two excellent central performances. The veteran Swiss Actress Sibylle Brunner, in her first ever leading role, is rightly picking up awards for her devastatingly wonderful turn as Rosie, and Swiss actor Fabian Krüger is pitch perfect as the dour faced Lorenz who waits until the last reel to smile.

    This movie is being hailed in some quarters as New Swiss Cinema and worthy of a world audience. I’m not sure if I really knew much about ‘Old Swiss Cinema ‘to make any comment, other than to say it definitely is well-worth seeing.

    A Man, His Lover And His Mother is Available to buy on DVD from Amazon

  • FILM REVIEW | Bruno & Earlene Go To Vegas

    ★★ | Bruno & Earlene Go To Vegas

    When the movie opens Earlene is sitting on a wall in Venice Beach swigging from a bottle secreted in a brown paper bag and she very dramatically utters to a total stranger, ‘Experience is the name we give our mistakes. Which one are you?’ and I cannot help but cringe.

    It sadly will not be the last time I feel like that, whilst watching this well-meaning micro-budget indie movie, that is all heart but ends up being an undisciplined convoluted mishmash of a film.

    Earlene like every other character in this story has her ‘issues’ although in her case the reason for her mood swings is not clear until near the end. Her new androgynous Australian friend Bruno, that she immediately latches on to at their first encounter is sexually confused, and so she adopts his well-being and happiness as her own crusade. Bruno has a dream of visiting Paris to see the Eiffel Tower, which is obviously out of the question as neither of them have any money, so his new friend Earlene promises to take him on a road trip to see the next best thing i.e. a full-size replica in Las Vegas.

    En route and a chance meeting with Billy, a good-looking cocky gay drifter takes them off course and they stumble upon a very small forgotten town in the middle of the Nevada desert. It’s inhabited by an odd bunch of misfits straight out of Central Casting that includes a Cher look-alike Sheriff, a tap-dancing drag queen, and a couple of Scottish male strippers. They are all kindred spirits who have found this remote bolt-hole where they can escape the outside world that none of them remotely fit in.

    This debut feature from British writer/director/producer Simon Savory bravely tackles issues of gender and sexual identity and friendship, and at times is close to succeeding. It’s valiant effort, however, is hampered by a heavy-handed script with a smattering of pompous sounding epithets which made the dialogue somewhat stilted. Ashleigh Simpson the lead actress could have taken her performance down a notch or too as she overplayed the part of Earlene to the point of being annoying.

    On the other hand, Savory’s choice to shoot this British production on location was very wise and really paid off with some excellent cinematography of the beautiful desert setting.

    P.S. It’s tough being a filmmaker with such a minute budget and the biggest disadvantage of assuming all the major functions yourself, as in this case is that you lack the benefit of another independent set of ears and eyes which may have spotted some of the issues, which stopped it being the movie it was obviously meant to be.

    Due for release on the 15th September.

  • FILM REVIEW | Pride

    ★★★★★ | Pride

    A film that includes Wales, miners, politics, gays and an ’80’s soundtrack, ticks all my boxes! Pride is one of those films that will do well, a mix of topics, a “people” film, part tear-jerker, part bio-pic (based on true events, with real characters), part comedy, think Billie Elliot, Kinky Boots or Calendar Girls.

    The story is simple, set in 1984 in the midst of the Miner’s strike, the Unions versus Thatcher’s government and its hard stance, and a politicised London gay boy suddenly gets the idea to raise funds for the miners, having heard how they are being intimidated back to work.

    He forms the Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners Group (LGSM) and starts fund-raising for them. However, after their first round of bucket rattling, it becomes apparent that the Unions aren’t keen on taking their money. So they go direct, and find a South Wales mining community who will take their cash and donations. And this is the start of the bonding of two disparate communities.

    The majority of the film deals with how the two communities grow to know each other, how the London group gets to grips with a small community and its prejudices (or in some cases, lack of them) and the Welsh group and their education in to the world of “the gays”!

    The film provides so much repeatable fodder, I guarantee that you will be quoting this film next month! My favourite is still Imelda’s line from the preview: ‘We’re off to Swansea now for a missive lez off!’

    My recommendation, go see it, go get your cockles warmed, sing-along-a-bronski-beat and watch some of the smoothest disco moves on the silver screen courtesy of the amazing Dominic West!

    The cast is incredible, including the lovely Andrew Scott (Moriarty from Sherlock) gives a hell of a performance as part of the “older” gay couple paired with Dominic West as his partner, Imelda Staunton as the kind of Welsh matriarch I know and love, Bill Nighy gives one of his best subtlest performances, but it’s the ones I’m not that familiar with that really set the stage for this film. George MacKay is amazing as a then underage closeted young man on a journey, Joseph Gilgun gives a great performance as one half of a platonic political couple with Ben Schnetzer who plays Mark, the driving force and sometimes eloquent spokesperson behind the LGSM. Watch out for a cameo from the lovely Russell Tovey too.

    Matthew Warchus and Stephen Beresford have given us a true slice of early ’80’s nostalgia, wrapped up in a slice of political and social history and some of the most comic scenes you’ll ever see.

    I’d give this film 6 stars out of 5 is I could, but I’ll make do with 5 for now!

    In Cinemas 12th September

  • FILM REVIEW | Lilting Reeks of good intentions but never really takes off.

    Junn is a rather disgruntled 60-something year old Chinese woman who has been co-coerced against her will into moving into a care facility for Seniors by Kai her son. The opening scenes of this wee British drama see the unhappy mother berating her only child for her present predicament, which is, exasperated by the fact that although she has lived in London for decades she has never learned to speak English. ★ ★

    It is soon revealed that Kai had recently died under mysterious circumstances and what we are watching now are in fact her memories. Richard who was Kai’s boyfriend for the past few years feels it’s his duty to take over from his late lover and starts to regularly visit Junn in his place. The trouble is Junn never knew her son was gay (or refused to admit it anyway) and really loathes Richard who she felt usurped her place in Kai’s life. And to make matters worse as Richard cannot speak Mandarin, the two of them have no way to communicate.

    When Junn gets hit on by the home’s resident lothario, Richard seeing a glimmer of hope of some happiness for the perpetually melancholic Junn, hires a translator to help the lovebird’s potential courtship. It also serves as a means for him to start a dialogue with the old woman too, which is no easy task, as she seemingly has no concept of the fact that Richard is grieving for his loss too.

    It’s a very slight story and as it is essentially about these strained relationships between different cultures and generations, a lot of the emotions literally get lost in the translating. Richard seems to spend much of his time in tears whilst on the other hand Junn just sits and stares with he big wide eyes.

    This debut movie from filmmaker Hong Khaou reeks of good intentions but never really takes off. He had the good fortune to cast veteran Chinese acting legend Pei Pei Cheng as Junn, and had managed to snare Ben Whishaw to play Richard. Most indie films would kill to get stars like this, but in this case, Whishaw’s uneven performance seemed to unsettle the balance between him and the other actors, particularly Andrew Leung, who played his on screen boyfriend Kai.