Coming Home Again

Director Wayne Wang (Joy Luck Club, Main in Manhattan) is back with an indie film that is a much different pace than his previous films. I saw this film at TIFF this year and there were moments that left me in tears as I saw the main character come to terms with saying goodbye to his dying mother. Family secrets come out through the flashbacks and watching this film made me appreciate my immigrant parents sacrificing so much for us.

A Korean-American family is gathering on New Year's Eve Day for a traditional NYE dinner. The mother has stomach cancer. While the father claims he can take care of her, the son has abandoned his NYC job to do so. He is also preparing dinner based on mother's recipes and directions he had learned from her. The daughter eventually also arrives for the event.

As the son prepares dinner, flashbacks / memories of earlier family events fill out some motivations for the current members. These can sometimes be hard to distinguish from "present day", as the son's appearance remains unchanged. From the Q+A (I saw this at the Toronto International Film Festival), the director gave 2 possible reasons: the film's low budget, or since these were the son's memories, he doesn't have to change.

All 4 members of the family have different reactions to the mother's illness, which makes it more honest than the forced happiness of The Farewell. My only quibble is a final memory should have been placed somewhere else in the film, as it weakens the ending

This movie defies any category, it's its own thing. Started a little slow, took some time to draw me in, but then it did with the scenes from earlier days, showing the wider scope of the relationships.

It's not about food, it's not about dying, it's maybe about mothers and sons and how fragile and beautiful family relationships can be. Also complicated and understated. A lot is left unsaid, a lot is suppressed, a lot is misunderstood sometimes. But when there's genuine affection it shows, even through the anger and frustration.

Deserves much more attention that it's getting. Also, the summary here does not describe it that well.