There’s a poetically unstable atmosphere surrounding the film Lilting; it’s a feeling that at any moment the worlds of our two leads could come crumbling down around them, bit by bit.
Set in London, it’s a story about a Cambodian-Chinese mother mourning the abrupt death of her son. She’s currently located in an assistant living home when her routine is disrupted by Richard (Ben Whishaw). Neither speaks the other’s language, so he hires a translator. At first he does it to seemingly help Junn (Pei-pei Cheng) speak with a suitor who also lives at the home, but it soon ends up being a means for the two to interact and discuss the man they both lost, Kai (Andrew Leung), her son and his unbeknownst-to-her lover.
Directed by Hong Khaou, the atmosphere he creates adds to the tone of surface-level grief and to the discord between the two characters. He places his two lead characters in isolated settings whether they have company or not. When the two have conversations with the deceased Kai or remember some of their last moments together, you feel the sense of loss and of love. There is so much affection between both pairs. Kai loves his mother despite their disagreements and her jealousy of his partner, and from the little we see of Kai and Richard together, they seem more like extended limbs of one another’s, so in tune to ever really be apart. Lilting is as much a love story as it is about how a connection to another human being cannot be defined simply by the language they speak.
The movie only ever falls short when it focuses on the romance between Junn and the man she’s been seeing. It’s charming and cute and it plays nicely, but it seems detached from the rest of the film. What’s more interesting about the storyline is how we see Richard use it as an excuse to be nearby, how despite doing it to be friendly and not to absolve any guilt, it also has selfish motives; he wants to know this extension of Kai. It’s interesting to see characters choking on their own grief while simultaneously trying to pretend it isn’t there, and are then reminded of it constantly by one another.
Ben Whishaw is the best actor of his generation and one of the finest living actors today. No question. He has a spark to each and every one of his performances, no matter if they’re in a blockbuster or a barely-on-the-radar independent film. He is such a master in minimalism that you don’t realize just how much he’s doing with his face, just how much he’s expressing with so little. So roles such as this, where he’s simply playing a normal, grieving, human being, prove to be excellent showcases. He’s a soulful actor and we feel what he’s feeling when we watch him.
Cheng is similarly excellent and sells the sadness of a mother losing her only child with acute tenderness. Like Whishaw, her emotions spill across her face and we’re never in doubt of what she’s feeling despite Cheng being able to convey more than one emotion at once through her eyes alone. The discomfort between her and Whishaw’s character is tangible for most of the film as they feel one another out, and the last 15 minutes or so between the two of them are some of the most touching moments of film this year.
It’s a very sweet, very lived-in, comfortable world in a way that makes it feel timeless. These characters will continue living their lives despite the tragedy they’ve endured and have begun to carry as their burden. Now these two can share the pain they held for Kai, the love they felt for him and, most importantly, the memories they can now share both new and old of a boy they both adored. Running at a brief 90 minutes, the film never feels overstuffed or too long. Lilting is a quick and quiet peak into these two humans’ lives, and it is through their conversations and silence that we learn so much.
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8/10
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