The Left-Handed Girl | Anora’s Sean Baker Film Review

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Critic’s Week

If you didn’t know in advance that The Left-Handed Girl is the first solo directorial work by Shih-Ching TsouI would never imagine this while watching the film. This small production with a giant heart comes, after all, with the stamp of an artist. Someone with a voice of their own. It’s no accident – ​​the Taiwanese filmmaker is a long-time collaborator of Sean Bakerproducing films such as Florida Project e Red Rocket alongside the winner of Oscar by Anorain addition to driving, together with him, Take Out em 2004.

Here, Baker is a producer, editor and screenwriter, along with Tsou, but perhaps the greatest effect of his name – especially given the historic feat we saw at the last Oscar – comes when it comes to selling the project to a Western distributor, because in execution, The Left-Handed Girl It is undoubtedly the result of its director. It is clear that the taste of the two people responsible for the story – where we follow the daily, personal and financial struggles of a mother and her two daughters – is similar, and Baker is one of the best artists when it comes to directing women, particularly younger ones, today, but it is easy to notice the director’s hand holding the iPhone that filmed every moment of this fun, exciting and very careful modern work of narrative.

This, in this case, begins with the return of Shu-Fen (Janel Tsai) to Taipei. There, while his eldest and rebellious daughter I-Ann (Ma Shih Yuan) gets a job in a questionable establishment, she opens a ramen shop in a night market. If they both experience moments of stress, little I-Jing (Nina Yeh) still enjoys the innocence of childhood, and finds it in his new daily life – particularly in the toys and attractions of the market, such as Johnny’s shop (Brando Huang), a merchant very interested in Shu-Fen – new environments, people and things to discover. One of these discoveries comes during a visit to her grandparents’ house, where she hears a conservative and outdated view of the use of the left hand: it is the “devil’s hand”, and should not be used.

Left-handed, I-Jing interprets the expression as an excuse to do (and take) whatever he wants, since everything can be blamed on the bad thing. It wasn’t her, says the girl when asked, it was he. The girl’s jokes provide the best laughs in the film, particularly when she accidentally saves a relative from jail, but her heartbeat Left-Handed Girl there is also the rebellious and intense late adolescence of I-Ann, a young woman who traded high grades in high school for a life of working early for reasons more complicated than her former classmates think. Together, the two create an energetic dynamic that finds a perfect contrast in the realism of Shu-Fen’s battles to keep the bills, and her emotions, under control.

Tsou and Baker’s text uses these divergences to generate sparks precisely because it sees each of the protagonists, regardless of their ages and personalities, as a complete, three-dimensional woman worthy of the attention of the smartphone camera used to give the The Left-Handed Girl a characteristic as rustic as it is intimate, something that is enhanced by the overexposed and colorful photography direction of Chen Ko-chin e Like Tzu-Hao, as well as the pop sensitivity of Baker’s own editing. At the center of it all are three performances whose distinct vibes fit together perfectly, including a passionate and surprising work by Mirim Yeh.

Combined, these elements allow Tsou to bring to life the smell and textures of a city as frenetic and interesting as its new inhabitants. The Left-Handed Girl discovers Taipei as a place of people often worried about money, expectations and family. In a particularly important touch of local culture, the director works in depth on the uniquely – and universally – feminine issue of reputation, finding in the three women opportunities to explore and question dogmas imposed solely on daughters, even by their mothers. All of this gains even more strength with the impactful final stretch of the story, which does not end by offering a perfect closure for each member of the trio, but rather by recognizing the continuity of their lives, still full of challenges and loves. These are played out through relationships that are always messy, and always – Always – humans.