During COVID lockdown some guests are stuck in a Thai hotel, the film focuses on four of them. A married couple, who spend most of thier time bickering, each find companionship in much younger counterparts. We learn later in the film that the marriage has never lived up to the expectation/promise, and the younger characters are both still finding thier way in the world of love and sex.
The husband forms a curious relationship with the 19 year old girl which conjures faint echoes of classics like Lost in translation/Leon/Lolita. This forms the meat of the story. To begin with they are somewhat flirtatious without being inappropriate, although things change towards the end after some vodka is consumed. The scenes they share are very engaging and make you read into each of their interactions intently, keeping my utmost attention. He also has a young male carer, young enough to be unsure of sexuality which raises questions and perhaps desires in him.
This was technically very accomplished and engaging thanks to an impressive evocation of the character's motivations. Mainly through the dialogue which is mostly at once everyday and insightful - acutely observed with personality and dry humour. The story is delivered in chapters using non linear storytelling with chapters slightly out of sequence - and the addition of the title cards made me smile.
It looks great, I have a real weakness for crisp black and white. I thought it was well shot with calm moving camera work and meaningful static shots. There's an early shot of the husband and girl sat talking, the camera is behind something so they appear to be behind bars. This is far from a new visual trick (it was never done better than in the wonderful Raging Bull jail cell scene) to show two people who feel trapped within the confines of thier freedom. Another shot of the same two later cleverly uses the foreground objects to suggest a divide between them.
So this is a very human story exploring many themes including relationship ups and downs, (in that sense it reminded me in moments of Jack Clayton's 1950s classic Room at the Top and many others) confinement and I believe above all; the Melancholia of aging with young people around you and looking back on your youth. The performance from the young girl was excellent. Especially in some great scenes between her and her mother, whi she is always butting heads with, including an admission/revelation from mum at the end which proves to her that they were not so different in thier youths. The characters and plotline are complex enough that there are different ways to read the film. I found it to be about the loss of/trying to recapture youth as you age and the hindsight that comes with it.
With about two minutes to go, the film had me under it's spell entirely. I was sympathetic to the characters and invested in their arcs, it was beautiful looking and (sentimentally) beautiful feeling. Then something is revealed (which immediately put me in mind of a 2003 classic of Korean cinema - a parallel that would not have evaded many) right at the end which threw the aim of the film under new speculation. Not just because of the information that is revealed, but because of the tonal shift.. it all of a sudden became heavy handed, unsubtle and cheap. The final shot may suggest that it isn't actually happening as we see it, but either way the final scene goes too far and knocked at least half a point off my rating.
4 out of 5
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