Monsoon

Observational and lyrical, Acclaimed BAFTA-nominee director Hong Khaou follows the personal journey of Kit (the hunky Henry Golding from "Crazy Rich Asians"), a British man who returns to modern Vietnam, his childhood place, in order to find relief for his emotional crisis. Exploring his roots and cultural identity, he meets Lewis (Parker Sawyers) and they ignite a sexually-charged relationship while dealing with each other's traumas, loneliness and lust. The result is a fascinating and inclusive, sexy and nostalgic redemptive story. (Strand Releasing will release the film in November 2020.)

Monsoon is nicely made and opens the viewer up to a slice of modern Vietnam but ultimately the film offers very little.

The film concludes with no clear conclusion on what he decided to do with his parents ashes. There was no clear resolution about the main character's mixed feelings about being back. Presumably he stays with the guy he briefly gets to know but even that relationship felt flat and with little to no substance beyond a physical one.

The majority of characters seemed rather glum and lifeless - usually wearing a frown or blank expression making their intentions and emotions hard to read.

In the end this isn't really a gay film, nor a film about family and resolution and not even a film about journey.

I wish I knew what the idea was meant to be behind this film - the director's other film, Lilting, is wonderful and so beautifully written, acted and produced. This was a let down for me.

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Not without its moments but Hong Khaou's 'Monsoon' feels frustratingly underwritten and unfocused. The acting appears wooden in many scenes and, when all is said and done, the movie is largely pointless.

The break-neck speed of the economic success and associated development experienced by Viet Nam in recent decades is well-known, yet for many outside the country mention of it still brings to mind the horrors of the 1955-75 war. In 'Monsoon' Kit, who as a child in the late 1970s left the country as one of the boat people, returns for the first time to scatter his parents' ashes. But as he explores Sài Gòn and meets relatives last seen thirty years ago, he finds much of the modern country does not resemble the distant memories of his childhood. Relief from this confusion comes in the muscular arms of Lewis, an American entrepreneur struggling with the ghosts of his father's involvement in the war.

Kit's bewilderment at the modern face of a country long ago left behind reminded me of many British expats I have met during my travels - pining after a country that I doubt ever really existed as they remember it. Unfortunately writer/director Hong Khaou portrays this by filming many sequences of Kit staring glumly at buildings (although to be fair, sometimes he gets closer to them and we get instead a shot of Kit staring glumly at a door, which at least adds a bit of variety). Lead actor Henry Golding does not help: I like a subtle performance, but there is a difference between subtle and simply sounding uninterested in the lines you are delivering. Parker Sawyers puts a bit more oomph into his portrayal of Lewis and thus creates a more interesting character. I also found interesting the character of Linh, a young and modern local woman under pressure to join her family's tea business which she finds hopelessly out-of-date and inefficient, even if it provides a quality product. In her scenes Khaou explores, in a balanced way, the disagreements between modernity and tradition, between the young and their elders.

Unfortunately, though, there is not enough of either Linh or Lewis to rescue this film. I can say it was worth seeing once, but I will not be troubling myself to watch it again.

Several times now I have stumbled across comments ( both in reviews and in television guides ) that the lead actor is straight. It is as if this is a comfort blanket for those in the audience who a ) do not want to confront a gay actor in the film, and b ) for those liberals who think how marvellous it is to see a straight actor being ' brave ' enough to take on the role. This is a recurring issue. James Ivory's ' Maurice ' was awash with it and so was ' Call Me By Your Name '. Given the discreet homophobia of both mainstream cinema and theatre it is not surprising Gay actors will not raise their heads above the parapet. The fact of having to explain an actor is straight is a sort of deadly homophobia in itself. Now for the film that I liked a lot. The acting from all of the cast was good but above all the direction was exceptionally good. The opening shot of cars scurrying about from a great height, like some sort of insect was a scary acknowledgement of how tiny we are in the scheme of things. This I believe occurred several times during the duration of the film and for me it was a revelation. Like an anthill we struggle with our histories, both political and personal, and how that very history is trodden on by the large feet of time. That alone made the film above the ordinary. The minimalism of the film also appealed with its Antonioni obsession with the sense of place around us mere humans, and the way we alternate between silence and noise. Of course there is a story, and for those who are interested in what has happened in Vietnam important, and the dislocation of a man who returns to a country he knew only to find he is more or less a stranger in a strange land. As for the homosexuality it is there, but despite a few brief scenes discreet. It is quite simply another aspect of the history of a character immersed in living in this great anthill called human life.