I love this movie so much

Good concept, poorly executed.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Throughout this movie, about the half Chinese man or his partner, we don't know their jobs or other status. Nor do we know much about their characters; when they appear they are mostly either discussing or describing the Chinese mother. Yet about her, we know every detail.The one who refused to learn the language while attracted to the culture; the one who continued to control her son even though he is a total grown-up; the one who contests for her son's affections and attention with whoever comes across; the one who deliberately remained incapable of taking care of herself so that the son cannot leave her alone. So typically a Chinese mother.

Lilting: (adj) pleasant rise and fall of the voice Like its title, this movie exhibits that spoken language can't be as good as emotions to connect two different people, who shares grief for the same person they love deeply.Richard, a British guy, trying to communicate with Junn, a widowed Cambodian-Chinese woman who is the mother of his dead boyfriend, Kai. Richard intends to help Junn, who lives in London but doesn't have any other family taking care of her after Kai's death. It turns out to be difficult, because Junn doesn't speak English and she hates Richard for getting in between Kai and her. She doesn't know her son was gay, and Richard feels responsible to tell her because Kai was about to come out before he died.To help oil the communication wheel, Richard hires translator, a Chinese descent girl named Vann. She helps translate for Alan, an old man who likes Junn and lives in the same nursing home. However, as Vann helps Richard talk to Junn, somehow the translator got carried away emotionally; she tries making Junn understand that Richard is the love of Kai's life, and the person who can get her son's attention as much as she does. And they need to help each other to move on.I think the most fascinating element of this movie is that, despite the communication problem, eventually Richard and Junn manage to understand each other by showing their true feelings to Kai. Ben Wishaw has delivered impeccable performance as the achingly suppressed Richard. Every time I remember about Richard's face crumpled with grief, it saddens me. That's how good Wishaw's acting is. Hong Kong actress Cheng Pei-pei also succeeded to portray the stoic and conservative Junn.The end of the movie is beautifully artistic, depicting Junn's true feeling and why she refuse to adapt to the new culture she's been facing for years. And like any good mother, she'll always love her son unconditionally. Here's Junn's great monologue toward the end of Lilting: Through plenty of crying, I've learnt to be content that I won't always be happy, secure in my loneliness, hopeful that I will be able to cope. Every year on Christmas Day I get very lonely. An incredible feeling of solitude. On this day, everything has stood still, even the trees have stopped rustling, but I'm still moving, I want to move, but I have nothing to move to, and nowhere to go. The scars beneath my skin suddenly surface and I get scared. Scared of being alone.The sub-conflict between Junn and Alan – who get the benefit from the translator in the beginning but then stop after discover each other bad habits – adds humor to the gloomy story. In a nutshell, the first move of Cambodian-born British director Hong Khaou is a reflection of sensitive subjects, such as same-sex relationship, transcends through cultural barrels: it can be amusing, intense, and poignant. Hong did a tremendous job by making this debut looks personal and real, with the help of wonderful cinematography done by Urszula Pontikus and melancholic music by Stuart Earl.

Richard and Kai had been in love and living together for four years. Kai's widowed mother, Juun, although resident in England for many years, had neither assimilated in anyway nor had she acquired any ability to communicate in the English language. At one point, when relating her personal history, she explains somewhat sarcastically that five years after her husband and she had emigrated from Cambodia, "we were English."While she is very much dependent on her son, she is supposedly unaware that he is gay and living with Richard in a relationship that is much more than a Platonic friendship. Kai places his mother in a senior home where she feels very much abandoned, betrayed and isolated. This arrangement is stressful to them all, especially because both his gay relationship and his apparent dumping of his mother in order to stay alone with Richard are at even greater odds in terms of Asian cultural expectations with regards to family. After much hesitation and worry, Kai invites his mother to come to his home to meet Richard and he plans to use this visit to "come out" to her. When he sets off to collect her from the seniors' facility and to bring her back to his home, he is killed in an accident.Richard feels compelled to meet her and to help her find a way to get on with her life without her son to support her. He also feels that she needs to understand that Kai's death meant more to him than just the loss of a friend. Communication between Richard and Juun and between Juun and other residents of the home is virtually impossible, accentuating her isolation and further complicating Richard's desire to help her cope without Kai, as well as his wish that she understand what Kai's loss means to him.A young woman becomes involved as a Cantonese/English translator to facilitate communication both between Richard & Juun and between Juun & Alan,a male resident of the seniors' home who wishes to develop a romantic long-term relationship with her. Obviously the translator's presence is meant to further emphasize the divide that exists between Richard and Juun as well as between Juun and everyone else.While I understand that the difficulties of different cultures and languages between Alan and Juun were meant to even further underscore her isolation while an ever-present translator stands between them and the constantly hovering Richard floats about, it seemed that adding that complication to the mix was a somewhat heavy-handed, distracting and unnecessarily time-consuming addition to the story development.It also seemed that Richard's character was inconsistently hesitant & often irritatingly inept most of the time, but occasionally overly angry and petulant, especially when it appeared the relationship between Juun and Alan was off. I understand that he was, in part, trying to be surrogate son in his effort to settle Juun into a life independent of her now absent son, but there might have been better ways to demonstrate Richard's frustration and despair. It was a moving, calculated attempt to take on the complications of a man trying to juggle both a "modern" gay relationship while maintaining a traditional family relationship made all the more difficult by language & conflicting cultures, but I think it might have been better achieved with more time spent allowing us to see Richard and Kai during their relationship while they tried to come to terms with Juun as a factor in their lives. Alan could easily have been eliminated from the plot by assuming the viewer was capable of understanding Juun's isolation and dependence without having it beaten to death and dragged out to the extent that it was.

This is the debut feature film for Hong Khaou, and being of Cambodian descent, I imagine this movie may be semi-autobiographical, though that is obviously pure speculation. This interesting little film (running on an insanely low budget of 12,000 pounds if I am not mistaken) is about a Chinese-Cambodian elderly woman, Junn (veteran actress Pei-Pei Chang), who has just lost her son Kai, not long after he put her into a home. He was gay, but could never bring himself to tell his mother. This was the reason she ended up in the home and not living with him and his boyfriend Richard (Ben Whishaw). When Richard enters the fold initially he seems like a stranger, at least as far as Junn is concerned, and to make it harder, he can't communicate with Junn as she can speak 8 different dialects, but refuses to learn English despite living in the UK. Despite their differences, despite the overwhelming obstacles to hurdle, Richard is not intending on giving up trying to talk to his partner's mother. They share the same pain, but Junn has no idea of this. Since Junn doesn't know about the same-sex relationship her son was having, Richard's job becomes at least twice as tough, as he has to act as Kai's 'best friend', trying to connect with Junn that they both are sharing the same misery, the same loneliness and sense of loss after losing a loved one.Along the way Junn meets a gentleman who is also a resident at the home. Playing an amusingly dry old codger, Peter Bowles as Alan is smitten by Junn, yet they have no way of truly communicating. Richard rectifies this by hiring a translator, which helps both Alan and Richard as it opens up a dialog between the different parties, for better or worse. Richard continues to go to endless lengths to try and communicate and help Junn overcome her son's death, as unwilling as she seems, as well as trying to help negotiate the problems Junn and Alan are having; it seems the possibility of a relationship with Alan may be slim. And so the story goes, moving from this premise into emotional territory where each character's decision is not easy, and someone as stubborn as Junn makes life difficult for Richard and the translator he has to help smooth the process… Which doesn't go as smoothly as planned.This film is extremely depressing at points and heartwarming at others. It is nice to see a film with a real heart without dipping into overly sentimental trite. The true unforgettable message that this film gave me was how it illustrated how culture can truly alienate us; from loved ones, from people who want to help. But at the same time, it highlights elements of the human condition that transcend culture, such as family, or music. I didn't think I'd enjoy this as much as I did, it isn't my type of film really. But I really liked it. Probably also because I have seen how truly heart-breaking it is to make that decision to put a parent/grandparent in a home really is. It ain't pretty.8/10 - If you aren't looking for action, and are interested in watching a more thought-provoking movie that really will pull at your emotions, check this one out. The absurdly low budget is not noticeable at all, especially given the quality of the production, from the perfect sequence of scenes, to the subtle but interesting photography work and the minimal but effective soundtrack.This isn't a film that I will revisit immediately, unlike many others than have been released this year. But I know that a time will come where I suddenly will have to put this on. It is a powerful, emotional film that subtly comments on the differences of cultures and/or language, the stigma that is still attached to same-sex couples, especially among older, more 'traditional' people, but most importantly, a few key scenes show us that differences in culture, in language, in beliefs, can be transcended, and no matter what the barriers between communication may be, humanity can prevail. It is not impossible to share true, meaningful moments with someone who cannot speak a word of your language. This film excels at showing this, linking us all as human, no matter our colour, our culture or our beliefs.