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Logline: Confronted with a visit by her traditional parents and younger sister to her boarding school, a Singaporean teenager attempts to reconcile the differences between their values and her affirming self-discoveries.
Synopsis:
The film is a coming-of-age drama that opens to BOWEN (17), a Singaporean teenager overseas who receives her family at a non-descript airport. That includes her mother JIA (40s), her father WING (40s) and younger sister YAN (13). While the visit includes the anticipated Annual Fall Dinner at her boarding school, it is evident that they may not have left on the best of terms; the tension is piercing. The dramatic central question: is Bowen able to reconcile her past and present, and differing values with her family.
Their exchanges in the rental car and in the boarding school illuminate their dynamics as a family and individuals. They try to reconnect: Jia concerns herself with Bowen’s studies, weather, wellbeing, even the food that she gets from the cafeteria; Wing the quiet patriarch struggles to make any meaningful progress; and Yan wants to apologize for a past misunderstanding but hesitates to make the first move. Bowen has a complex undercurrent of emotions, torn between being real or retreating into herself—again.
When the sisters are alone, it is clear that they were very close but something happened in the past between them that caused a huge rift. It feels painful and neither one of them knows how to deal with it. The silences are loud, their feelings unspoken. Yet, there is a tenderness that cannot be destroyed and it tethers them together. Set against the vastness of the wild landscape that is foreign to their upbringing, they slowly open up and mend the brokenness.
Eventually, Bowen goes shopping for a formal outfit for the Annual Fall Dinner with Jia. While Jia has not addressed any of the issues, Bowen has since changed into a more confident young woman and wishes to try on a pantsuit, something that makes her more comfortable in her own skin. There is protest and the unaddressed conflict reaches a point that boils over to unflinching honesty. It feels like the first time mother and daughter have talked about something that actually matters: a genuine understanding to who Bowen is.
It is revealed that their sisterhood was wounded when Bowen was sent away to boarding school after Yan told their parents that she saw Bowen being too close to a female classmate. She witnesses it in a chance encounter, then whispers it into existence. Whether it is the truth or a heightened memory, it does not matter. Perhaps the disclosure was fueled by a lack of understanding, or curiosity of adolescent love. Nonetheless, it has profound implications for the relationships between the sisters, and with their parents.
At the Annual Fall Dinner, the air is filled with exuberance that helps the family heal their fractured bonds. Bowen suggests they have a picture captured by the event photographer. They pose and their smiles are big, each flash solidifying that the moment is real and worthy of remembrance. When Bowen calls her best friend over to introduce her, Yan beams and her parents react positively, different than their reactiveness from before. They welcome her into the fold with open hearts. Bowen dances, freed by her own truth.
Directed by Vivian Ip (USA)