Dear Ex (2018)
July 12, 2019 1:19 PM - Subscribe
Dear Ex is a Taiwanese movie about a kid, his mom, his dead dad and his dead dad's boyfriend. Told from those three perspectives, Dear Ex is a moving tale of family, grief and the healing power of community theater. It's on Netflix!
From NPR:
The film opens with 13-year-old Chengxi (Joseph Huang) claiming he always knew his dad was gay. It has been three months since his professor father's death from cancer, and Chengxi learns he's been written out of his insurance policy. His prone-to-hysterics mother Sanlian (Ying-Xuan Hsieh) knows the truth: that her deceased husband Zhangyuan secretly named his longtime male lover as his benefactor, but that the claim can't go through unless she signs off on it. So Sanlian drags Chengxi along to the mystery man's ramshackle apartment, hoping to spur a confrontation that will somehow put the lid back on the wreckage of their lives.
From NPR:
The film opens with 13-year-old Chengxi (Joseph Huang) claiming he always knew his dad was gay. It has been three months since his professor father's death from cancer, and Chengxi learns he's been written out of his insurance policy. His prone-to-hysterics mother Sanlian (Ying-Xuan Hsieh) knows the truth: that her deceased husband Zhangyuan secretly named his longtime male lover as his benefactor, but that the claim can't go through unless she signs off on it. So Sanlian drags Chengxi along to the mystery man's ramshackle apartment, hoping to spur a confrontation that will somehow put the lid back on the wreckage of their lives.
It's so pretty! The lighting is just dreamy and beautiful, especially the neon of the city and the retro home-movie lighting of the flashback sequences. And the soundtrack is fantastic, too. The song about Bali is still stuck in my head.
I watched it with my little brother, whose teen boy verdict was "big sads" and with my Taiwanese mother in the room (she thought everyone was a bit dramatic). It was kind of funny seeing echoes of my own family in Chengxi and Sanlian. I remember in one scene when Chengxi's acting sullen my brother was 100% on his side, and Sanlian's love of superhealthy organic food is so classic.
posted by storytam at 11:28 PM on July 12, 2019
I watched it with my little brother, whose teen boy verdict was "big sads" and with my Taiwanese mother in the room (she thought everyone was a bit dramatic). It was kind of funny seeing echoes of my own family in Chengxi and Sanlian. I remember in one scene when Chengxi's acting sullen my brother was 100% on his side, and Sanlian's love of superhealthy organic food is so classic.
posted by storytam at 11:28 PM on July 12, 2019
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posted by watermelon at 1:27 PM on July 12, 2019