Tag: Tzi Ma

Add another to the list. The Farewell was another screener I actually wanted to go to, but real life got in the way. Amusingly, this time I couldn’t go because my own wife was about to go on a week long trip, so I had to help her on her own farewell.

But I was happy in that I knew I’d have time to see it before the end of the year. It would eventually come out and be watchable.

And it looked sad, and if it could provide a good cry, I am all for it, any day of the week.

That’s a lot of people not crying who clearly want to cry. 

Billi (Awkwafina) is an aspiring writer and a Chinese-American immigrant. Her family moved her down to the states form China when she was a little girl, and she has been in America since then. Despite this, she has still maintained a good relationship with her grandmother, Nai Nai (Zhao Shuzhen). She will call her often, update her on her life, and you know, give her a good chance to practice her Chinese.

Well, she finds out sometime soon a few things. One, her cousin is getting married in China very soon, and two, her Nai Nai has terminal cancer and is not going to last long.

However, in their culture, they do not like to tell people when they are going to die. They believe that the fear of the disease is worse than the disease itself. It is what really kills. No, they should just tell them everything is fine, so their last days are peaceful and not worrying.

Well, Billi has grown up in America. She doesn’t like that. American doctors wouldn’t lie and keep secrets like that. She should tell her. In fact, the wedding is just being rushed so that the family can gather and have a good time with Nai Nai before she passes. And despite trying to keep her away, Billi shows up anyways.

Billi promises that she will not tell her grandmother the truth, but she has to struggle with this the whole time.

Also starring Tzi Ma and Diana Lin.

Oh? Oh? Ohhhhh? Is then when the crying begins?

Gosh darn it. Here I am, in 2019, trying to be all mad at China. You know, for the President being a dictator, the poor workers rights, the former one child policy nonsense, the Hong Kong anti-protest measures. All of that.

And yet, then I have to go and watch a movie that makes me sad for China in a different way.

Awkwafina gives the performance of a lifetime for her, which might not mean much if you knew she has a rap song titled My Vag. She hasn’t been in that many movies technically, but she has been in a lot more recently, and it is great to not see her typecasted into these strange comedic roles.

This feels like a personal film for Awkwafina, and it is based on someone else’s real story, but her and all of the other actors in this film have to carry on so many emotions without easy outlets to express them. After all, they have to hide the truth from a perceptive older lady. So we get to see a lot of inner battles.

The Farewell is an intimate look at a culture that will seem unfamiliar and wrong to your likely non-Chinese eyes. And yet the glimpse into their lives cannot be called wrong, but bittersweet, and with its own pros and cons.

To be honest, 2016 has been an above average year for Sci-Fi. And no, I am not talking about Star Trek Beyond or Star Wars Rogue One.

But the Science Fiction films that make you think, that assume you are paying attention to the film and are here for a ride. Sure, we were given Allegiant, The 5th Wave, Independence Day: Resurgence, but they aren’t the only films out there. We were also given Midnight Special, which I gave a 4 out of 4 to, and 10 Cloverfield Lane, which I only had minor issues with.

And yet despite the better than average year, Arrival raises the bar higher and blows them all away.

That is important. That means something.

Arrival of course opens up with a parent losing her child, because movies want desperately for me to be sad always. We see a quick montage of Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) narrating over brief glimpses of her daughter, Hannah, and eventually succumbing to cancer in the late teens of early twenties. Fuck. Okay, let’s start off somber.

Dr. Banks is a linguist and teaches at a university level. She knows quite a few languages and just how they develop better than almost anyone. She has some government clearance too, thanks to helping decode some terrorist messages. So when the aliens come, she is quickly swept up to help figure out their language. The aliens are in twelve giant intimidating oval shaped pods around the world, with the only one in the US landing in Montana. Banks quickly determines that the best way to communicate and learn from them is an attempt to communicate both vocally and through a written language.

Her science team is lead by a theoretical physicist, Dr. Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), with the head military guy being played by Forest Whitaker, the head of operations guy being played by Michael Stuhlbarg, and of course, Tzi Ma, playing a Chinese general.

Suiting Up is always important when meeting someone new. Even if it is a biohazard suit.

Denis Villeneuve is a god amongst men. Sure, he didn’t come up with Arrival on his own, it is based on a book Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang. But Villeneuve is consistently doing films that seemingly no one else is attempting. He is not defining what is right or what is wrong. He is not holding your hand to give you all the answers in his stories. This is true for Enemy, Sicario, and Prisoners, and now it is true for Arrival. Many other directors would have made the film a lot more in your face, but Villeneuve assumes we are smarter than that and wants to focus on the experience and narrative, rather than pointing out the subtleties.

After the director it is hard to say where else I should go with this. The cinematography is beautiful, a lot of longer shots. We even get the indie “camera following the main character walking” shot a few times, which I normally get annoyed at, but this time it seems to work really well. The aliens themselves are stunning and a bit scary, shrouded in their mystery. And the music is a hard thing to ignore, all over the place and really putting the watcher in the right mood.

Adams pulls off a hell of a performance and is likely to be nominated from it. She is such a different person in this movie, even though she clearly looks like Adams, she feels like someone else. A lot of the crazier moments come up through and about her character and it is thrilling ride the entire time. Adams made me cry. Multiple times.

The film addresses a lot of powerful themes, and to talk about most of them would feel like a spoiler. Such is the problems of a reviewer.

Arrival is the sort of film that will actually get better with subsequent viewings. It ends up going places I didn’t think possible, and will stay with me for quite a long time.