Author: Mark Goodyear

The Farewell: The BRWC Review. They are rare, but the moments in a cinema where you have such confidence and love for a film that you hand over your emotions then and there, in your first viewing, those moments are the best. Lulu Wang’s second feature The Farewell is one of those experiences, and one of the years finest films as a result.

The Farewell opens with the text “Based on a true lie”, the lie being from a family to their elderly matriarch Nai Nai (Shuzhen Zhao). The family have found out that Nai Nai is dying of lung cancer and have decided not to tell her, opting instead to stage a fake wedding to bring all her relatives back together in China to aptly say farewell. This all stretches from a Chinese belief which the film loosely presents as, “It’s not the cancer that kills, it’s the fear”.

The path we’re led down is a heartbreaking one that displays the impact people have on each others lives, especially family. We follow Billi (Awkwafina) who left China when she was 6 and has only sparingly seen her grandmother ever since but always remained in contact. Her family thought it would be best for Billi to not come to the wedding as she wouldn’t be able to maintain the lie, but Billi had so much love for her grandmother that she simply had to come and find the bravery to hide her emotions. When we emerge in China, we are confronted by a family unit which simultaneously regrets and embraces their decision to hide the truth. This emotional complexity is why The Farewell is as evocative as it is, the family drama is something audiences are no strangers to, but in this context, it’s like a whole new sub-genre.

Above all else, The Farewell is a story that deserves telling, not only that; it is a story that had to be told. The world is a better place with this film existing within it. Countless films endeavour to capture love and put it on display but only a precious few manage to say something brand new on the topic, and the tragic beauty of The Farewell does that and so much more. There are scenes where you will laugh and cry within mere seconds of its rollercoaster ride. The best example of this is the absurdity of the fake wedding that in every aspect is real to Nai Nai. Her grandson Hao Hao (Han Chen) is posing to marry his girlfriend of only three months Aiko (Aoi Mizuhara), both are very young and find themselves awkwardly having to keep up the façade, resulting in plenty of hilarious moments. Yet all Nai Nai’s children at the wedding know the truth, and it weighs heavily upon them. All this is balanced masterfully, and that is thanks to one person above all others.

Lulu Wang is a born emotional puppet master. She weaves her biopic with such a delicate yet engrossing hand that it is difficult to believe this is only her second feature film. She is a filmmaker with such an eye for the simplicities of life that they come off as grandeur and sublime, but never lose their charm. From an American laundromat to the streets of China, Wang manages to stamp her name on everything on the other side of the lens. With the script, she has also created something so much more than what you would assume. There is an element that focuses on the logistics of moving from China to live or study in America. This element evolves into a discourse on how we should view our home even when we know our home has issues. And in an even greater testament to her mastery, this element fits in perfectly with the family-based waterworks, and it manages to convey an essential truth in the process. Lulu Wang has captured the hearts and souls of so many with her movie, and whatever’s next, a lot of them will come to listen, and I’m excited for whatever that may be.

The ensemble is the years best to date from what I’ve managed to see so far. Awkwafina firms her stardom with her career-best work here and it’s almost impossible to describe how adorable Shuzhen Zhao is as her grandmother. She carries herself with all the composure of the veteran actor she is and makes the transition to the western style seamlessly. A supporting actress Oscar nomination is the only way Hollywood can properly honour what she achieved here, and I hope they do because she more than deserves it. Together they form an irresistibly endearing pair that become the basis of every tug of the heartstrings. Every other member of the family nails their roles to perfection too. With Billi’s parents Haiyan and Lu Jian, played by Tzi Ma and Diana Lin respectively, being two more standouts as they further the emotional depth of this film to a whole new level as they come to terms with lying to a parent.

The Farewell is a heartfelt ode to the complexities of family relationships. Lulu Wang has developed into a filmmaker of great merit after only two films, and that is a staggering achievement. If you are fortunate enough to have a grandmother still, you will want to give her a call the second you walk out of the theatre, and that’s how you’ll know you have just seen something special.

In the darkest of times, we sometimes convince ourselves of certain impossibilities thanks to blind hope. It’s a spectacular human trait that somehow manages to surpass our inherent rationality. Rowan Athale’s new picture Strange but True deals with the trait and how sometimes just embracing the impossible is better than facing the truth. 

Strange but True begins with Melissa (Margaret Qualley), who is 36 weeks pregnant, visiting the relatives of her deceased boyfriend Ronnie (Connor Jessup), claiming it’s his child. The only issue is, he’s been dead for 5 years. From there, Ronnie’s brother Phillip (Nick Robinson) and their mother Charlene (Amy Ryan) go on separate journeys to discover their truths, embracing the impossible along the way. 

This film is a tale of two halves, with the first half being by far the worse of the two. It quickly dissolves into wild speculation about how Melissa fell pregnant. A lot of different branches are extended to find a solution to this issue, but none manage to be particularly captivating. Everything happens quite fast in the grand scheme of things, and there are plenty of twists and turns along the way.

Thanks to this, there is an inescapable sense of predictability throughout, and I don’t think the filmmakers were banking on that. It’s as if the film is talking into a pillow, and you really want to listen to what it is trying to say but you just can’t. This dampens some of the thrills, but not all of them. 

This is where the second half of the film comes in. The vast majority of Strange but True’s second half is intensely gripping. It’s hard to say too much without spoiling it, but the film well and truly overcomes its predictability and replaces it with raw thrills. It all ends abruptly but other than that this portion is massively entertaining, especially when compared to the opening. Knowing when to believe a lie is the message of this movie, and this section drives that concept. The truth is sometimes too dark to accept, so maybe it’s better to believe in something impossible. It’s a thought-provoking and touching sentiment, one the film as a whole never manages to grasp fully, but there are a few moments when it feels like the movie has something to say, and when those occur it all feels like a fully realised film.

The performances are all respectable. There is a lack of a real standout, but Amy Ryan delivers some powerful work as always, and the Robinson and Qualley make for a stirring pair. Had the script been more refined I think the actors would have found themselves with more in-depth characters to sink their teeth into.

What we get instead are tropey husks of what could have been actually interesting characters. Athale seems determined to make sure every character has a reason for being where they are now, and all the exposition adds up, and we find ourselves inundated with information we didn’t need to know. It makes characters that should have been endearing rather dull for a good part of the runtime. 

Strange but True is at its best when it builds upon the concept of subjective truth, and that happens enough for this to be worth watching. However, it almost loses itself in dull character backstories and wild conspiracy theories.

The ways human beings continue to exist even when they’re gone generally make for sentimental tear-jerking films when used as subject matter. However, when thrown into a darker genre, like horror or thriller, that sentimentality becomes something a whole lot more sinister. What Death Leaves Behind is Scott A. Hamilton’s non-linear debut feature that does just that but to mixed results. 

What Death Leaves Behind is about Jake Warren, a family man who finds himself struggling through dialysis while awaiting a kidney transplant and has been for 7 years. Once he finally gets that transplant, he never gets the chance to soak in the joy that should come with such an occasion because instantly nightmares begin to haunt his dreams depicting a man assaulting a woman. As his behaviour drastically changes, Jake forges his insane path leading to the realisation that what he’s seeing are the memories of the individual whose kidney he now has inside him. 

There’s a lot to like about the themes of the first twenty minutes of this film. The non-linear style doesn’t reveal much of where this film is heading in this period, so it plays more like a deeply sympathetic look at those unfortunate enough to find themselves on the transplant list. The film vividly captures the tragedy that is the nature of kidney failure; it is both harsh in its reality and heartfelt in its depiction. This opening is the perfect example of everything What Death Leaves Behind does right; when it dares to depict raw emotion, it has all the power to make audiences feel something. When it gets lost in pseudoscience, it becomes an unfollowable mess. 

Unfortunately, the latter is what dominates the story. The middle of this film loses base with the tragic reality the opening embedded us in. Jake becomes obsessed with the frankly ludicrous idea that the cells of a human can carry memories and, well, that’s precisely what is happening to him. The script never overcomes the ridiculousness of this concept, with the main culprit being choosing to tell this story in a non-linear fashion. It was a decision that added nothing to the experience of the film, and by the end, there is a real sense that utilising more straightforward storytelling would have made much more of an impact. 

There is only one asset to the core portion of the film, the performance of Khalil McMillan as Jake. It is an excellent acting debut. 

From behind the camera What Death Leaves Behind isn’t as successful as the actors were on their side. As mentioned before the edit is difficult to justify and takes away from the film far more than it adds this makes it difficult to praise the direction. However, it was Hamilton that led his actors to the great work they produced, and on that front, he has nailed his job in his debut. 

What Death Leaves Behind is more than it had any right to be considering that the middle portion is sluggish and difficult to take anything of substance from. It is thanks only to a couple of engrossing performances and the surprisingly deep beginning and end that this film becomes something worth spending some time with.

The nature of existence is almost impossible to comprehend or appreciate fully, we can never know what it’s like to not exist, so how can we realise what it truly means? Despite this, we can still analyse certain indisputable truths about existence, and we can philosophise on the topic to expand on these truths. Films, particularly Sci-Fi, embrace narratives that do just that. Andrew de Burgh debut feature “The Bestowal” is one such film. 

The Bestowal is a philosophical exploration and critique of the world. It sees Businessman Steven (Sam Brittan) on the brink of taking his own life when he is visited by an inter-dimensional being that is an incarnation of and known as, Death (Sharmita Bhattacharya) who appears to him as a young woman. However, Death is not there to take Steven’s soul. She is there to persuade him to keep on living by directing him to a higher purpose and reaffirming the role of good in the world, something he had lost sight of along the way. 

The film plays out throughout time and depicts Steven and Death meeting during four distinct phases of his life. Each is labelled as such, The Emancipation, The Enlightenment, Transcendence and Another Paradise. Each act only depicts the two characters talking and no one else. Electing to do this was surely a decision primarily effected by cost, but I do have to note that it severely limits the scope of what The Bestowal is trying to say. 

Above all else, The Bestowal is a societal critique that primarily targets technology and capitalism as the cause of humanities downfall. Unfortunately, de Burgh is somewhat on the nose and brazen with his approach to these topics. The characters speak with odd mannerisms as if they must mention every sci-fi buzzword over and over and it very quickly dissolves into something entirely unrelatable to what it is trying to talk about. With an agnostic take on religion that falls short of the wonder it seems to think it is generating, and an oddly stern anti-technology stance, this script reeks of being written entirely within an echo chamber. The biggest failing of the script is that it drags and in a 90-minute film that shouldn’t be happening. The entire middle section ‘The Enlightenment’ is the most criminal of this with the majority of it being more and more babble about the spirituality that exists in this world, none of which spoke to me in any fashion. There is nothing else to say other than that as a science fiction film The Bestowal doesn’t work on any level.

With that said, as a love story about two people connecting against the odds and changing each other’s lives, The Bestowal is surprisingly poignant. The concept of someone, or in this case, something, being sent to save you in your darkest hour, is a heartfelt one. The script fails to hit all the right notes to realise the otherworldly proportions of this convincingly, but it is still a potent depiction of one being connecting with another. The final two acts are the strongest in the entire film because of this relationship that blossoms. 

The ‘Another Paradise’ act is quite brilliant. It generates a rawness to the impossible absurdity the rest of the movie is centred around. That being its religious mythos that brought Death to meet Steven as he attempted to take his life. In this section, the film finally manages to express something to the audience; bonds between people are transcendent. In this respect, it is reminiscent of Interstellar though de Burgh doesn’t capitalise on the point so much as Christopher Nolan does. Regardless it is a cinematic theme worth investigating, and de Burgh manages to shine a glimmer of new light upon it which is worth commending.

The two performers are admirable with their turns with Bhattacharya stealing the show. She certainly had the better character of the two, but there is something about her eyes that scream of the emotional absence that her character is forced to exist with, she was perfect for the role. Brittan had a harder character to bring to life. Despite Steven being human, he has more of the unrealised science fiction to deal with, and at times he can’t grasp it. In saying that he holds his humanity close to his chest, and that is precisely what Steven is supposed to be, this films representative for humanity and the power that we possess to change the world. Neither manages to pull off the anti-technology agnostic deity angle, but with this deluded script I don’t think anyone could have.

The Bestowal thinks it’s a whole lot smarter than it really is. de Burgh’s characters preach his message to little effect, but still manage to form a genuine emotional bond as a duo which is something to be proud of. All in all, with a more refined script this really could have spoken to people, it just can’t help but get lost within itself along the way.