THE FAREWELL : Tuesday 17th September 2019.

'THE FAREWELL' is a PG Rated American comedy drama Directed, Written and Co-Produced by Chinese born American film maker, Producer and Writer Lulu Wang and apparently loosely based on her own life experiences. Made for just US$3M, the film saw its Premier screening at January's Sundance Film Festival before its wider US release in mid-July having taken so far US$18M and generated mostly widespread critical acclaim.

Born in China, aspiring writer Billi Wang (Awkwafina) moved to the US with her father Haiyan Wang (Tzi Ma) and mother Jian Wang (Diana Lin) when she was a child but kept up a close, albeit long distance, relationship with her beloved Nai Nai (Zhao Shuzhen), meaning paternal grandmother in Mandarin, her father’s mother therefore. Having been rejected for a prestigious arts fellowship grant, Billi learns from her parents that Nai Nai has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, and has been given but just a few months to live.

Nai Nai is however, blissfully unaware of this diagnosis, as she was accompanied to the hospital for her tests by her younger sister, Little Nai Nai (Lu Hong) who then received the test results before Nai Nai was able to sight them. Through deception and manipulation of these medical test results therefore, Nai Nai is, instead, falsely told that her most recent scans revealed only benign shadows which are now receding, and therefore she is in the clear.

An impromptu, and fake, wedding for Billi's cousin, Hao Hao (Chen Han), from Japan has been planned in China, as an excuse to reunite the family (for the first time in some twenty years) to spend what is expected to be one last time with Nai Nai. Fearing Billi will end up exposing the lie to her grandmother because she can't yet keep her emotions in check, Haiyan and Jian tell her to remain in New York for fear of giving their ruse away. 

Haiyan and Jian fly out to Changchun to be with Nai Nai leaving Billi at home, but Billi disobeys her parents' orders and travels to Changchun, the day after the rest of the family have arrived. Billi makes a commitment, albeit very reluctantly, to her parents that she will not reveal the cancer diagnosis to Nai Nai. She clashes on more than one occasion, however, with the rest of the family, including the Hospital Doctor treating her grandmother, over their deliberate dishonesty towards her grandmother. 

Overcome with emotions of guilt, Billi expresses mixed thoughts with her parents over the Chinese cultural beliefs that give rise to a family refusing to disclose such a life-threatening disease with the family matriarch. One evening, her Uncle, Haibin (Jiang Yongbo), reasserts that the lie allows the family to bear the emotional burden of the diagnosis, rather than Nai Nai herself, so allowing her to spend her last few months in peace and happiness. Billi subsequently learns that Nai Nai also told a similar lie to her husband up until his death when he was terminally ill.

Come the wedding day and during the lavish banquet held for numerous family and close friends afterwards, Haibin speaks on behalf of himself and his brother and breaks down in tears on stage while thanking his mother for making him the successful man he became. A short time later Hao Hao also breaks down in tears for reasons that are not entirely clear, but both are able to proceed through the rest of the banquet ceremony and formalities as planned without raising Nai Nai's suspicions.

Later that same evening, Nai Nai gives Billi a traditional red envelope containing a sum of money, encouraging her to spend the cash gift as she chooses, but not on bills. When Billi reveals to her grandmother that the art fellowship application fell through, Nai Nai responds by positively encouraging Billi to continue pursuing her dreams anyway as she is a smart girl. 

Billi maintains her commitment to keep the secret and shares a tearful goodbye with Nai Nai, as the rest of the visiting family members return to their homes in Japan and America. The credits reveal that six years after her diagnosis, the woman Nai Nai's character was based on is still very much alive and still practising her Tai Chi.

I did quite enjoy 'The Farewell', but that's about as far as my praise goes. Sure the film has a couple of funny moments - particularly a scene where the gathered family are leaving various offerings to the spirit of Nai Nai's long since deceased husband by his graveside, and another scene involving a collapsing umbrella during a rain storm - and the film also has moments of warmth and heartbreak too. Awkwafina also gives a stand out performance proving her acting chops once again and this time in a more dramatic role despite the look of perpetual sorrow, grief and angst inhibiting her face. As for Zhao Shuzhen's Nai Nai, well she just about steals every scene she's in dispensing her own brand of wit, wisdom and earnest advice whilst remaining completely oblivious to what is really going on around her. The other cast members also all hold their own, especially Tzi Ma, Diana Lin and Jiang Yongbo. The film is ultimately quite watchable, painless and has just about enough weight to carry it through its near one hundred minute run time, but, it's almost instantly forgettable, drags and meanders particularly in the middle section, is devoid of any real emotional heft and the comedic moments are few and far between.

'The Farewell' warrants three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard, from a potential five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

ARRIVAL : Tuesday 15th November 2016

And so the aliens have landed, in the form of first contact offering 'ARRIVAL' which I saw earlier this week based on the 1998 short Sci-Fi story 'Story of Your Life' by Ted Chiang. But make no mistake - this is no 'Independence Day', no 'War of the Worlds', no 'District 9' or 'The Thing' but more akin to the thinking mans 'Contact', 'Interstellar', 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind', and 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'. The films already highly rated adaptation is Directed by Denis Villeneuve, was made for US$47M, has taken US$39M at the global Box Office so far, and Premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in early September where it won the Future Film Festival Digital Award, and was nominated for a Golden Lion.

Here, twelve vast and mysterious alien spaceships touch down in various seemingly random locations around the world. Termed 'Shells' by the Americans because of their elliptical shape they measure about 1500 meters tall and hover motionless about ten meters off the ground, not emitting any sound, any gas, any radiation and constructed of a solid black stone like material the like of which is unknown to us. One such Shell has touched down in Montana, and this is where the action plays out in a hastily set up Army camp close by to the alien craft.

Every eighteen hours a hatch opens at the base allowing a small delegation of humans in to explore the anti-gravity interior where they emerge in a chamber with a huge rectangular window - the other side of which in a swirling white mist appear two 'heptapods' - seven legged beings towering over the humans, that bear no resemblance to anything we have seen before. Their 'finger tips' at the end of each limb opens up like a starfish from which they are able to emit an ink like substance thats swirls around and clings to the window like a coffee mug stain on a table. It then fades away and disappears once the humans have been able to capture it on film before another circular symbol is formed. This is the language of the aliens, and it is this language that renowned linguist professor Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) has been brought in to rather hurriedly decipher.

Joining Banks is theoretical physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) who now head up a team of other so called 'experts' endeavouring to communicate with the aliens and learn of their intentions. They report through to US Army Colonel Weber (Forest Whittaker). Weber is under pressure from Agent Halpern (Michael Stuhlbarg) who is more than gung-ho to let loose on the aliens with a can of Uncle Sam's whoop-ass, particularly when progress with communicating is painstakingly slow, and tensions are mounting at the other eleven locations around the world. Communicating with each nations leaders via a bank of live feed monitors, it soon becomes clear that each has a different agenda on what action to take, and all are learning different things about their respective Shells as time progresses, but are not prepared to share their discoveries.

Around the world there is rioting and looting in the streets and the social fabric of our planet is quickly falling into decay as it is realised that we are not alone in the universe, and according to the media and the doomsayers the end is nigh, and the aliens have come to attack and wipe out all known civilisation. In the meantime, the Chinese  and the Russians join forces and are quickly preparing to mount a full scale attack on the Shells located in their parts of the world if they don't haul ass soon and get the hell outta Dodge!

Meanwhile Banks and Donnelly are inside the shell every eighteen hours as the days, weeks and months pass by, with little progress being made. The alien language is very complicated, but through perseverance and applying what they both know, some progress is made. The aliens scroll a message that translates to 'offer weapon', and this is also seen in the other eleven Shells around the world. The world leaders are fearful upon seeing 'weapon' that they are under likely attack and begin mounting an offensive campaign. Banks however, interprets 'weapon' as 'tool' - a device to aid and assist, and perhaps the aliens are attempting to trade something of value, and important.

Throughout all of this Banks is having flash-backs about her daughter growing up and passing away from a rare disease while in her late teens - images we saw at the beginning of the film. She is haunted by these memories and bringing up her child alone, without the father who left for reasons that are unknown. However, as she comes closer to the aliens and begins to understand their language, she realises that in their time, time is non-linear and she too is now experiencing this through them. In communicating with one of the aliens up close and personal as best she can, she learns that the flash-backs she has been having are in fact flash-forwards and that her future daughters father will leave her after the child is born because he made 'the wrong choice'. The alien reveals that they are here to help mankind by sharing their language, and therefore their perception of time also, so that humanity can in turn help them 3,000 years from now. This is the 'offer weapon/tool' that the aliens were referring to in their scroll. The alien visitors mean no harm at all.

Returning to the base camp which is now being evacuated for fear of alien attack, Banks has another vision of eighteen months hence, when all is good in the world, the aliens have departed and the global leaders are united in celebration marking a new era of sharing, caring and togetherness. Banks siddles up to General Shang (Tzi Ma) of China who originally wanted to nuke 'em out of existence, but he thanks her for changing his mind. When Banks asks him how, he says she called him on his private number, which he then proceeds to give her for the first time. Coming round from her vision, she steals a satellite phone and calls Shang on his private number, and relates to him in fluent Mandarin the very same words that his wife said to him on her death bed - he told her these words in the future and she repeated them to him in the present. At this Shang orders his military might to stand down, prompting all other nations to do likewise, and together all nations share in their learnings gleaned from their respective Shells. At this, all Shells dematerialise and vanish into thin air.

Following this course of events, Donnelly declares his love for Banks, and in a flash-forward vision we learn that he will be father of Banks' daughter, and that he will leave her over 'the choice' she made to have a child even though she knew beforehand that the childs life would be cut short by a rare disease. Banks' motives are that now knowing that time is not linear, that it is better to have a child even for a short time, than never have that child come into existence.

This is a clever, thought provoking film that shares an underlying message of the importance of communication, unity and acceptance. Highly praised also for its stunning visuals, gripping story and great performances, especially from Amy Adams who carries this film, 'Arrival' is the thinking mans Sci-Fil movie that has something to say in todays world and turns the tables on the generally hostile alien contact genre with emotion, passion and a grounded realism that does not rely on heavy CGI, big guns, explosions and rousing end of the world speeches. Well worth the price of your ticket, and you'll need to concentrate on the storyline every step of the way.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-