What do you do after a record-setting haul of four individual Oscars including Best Picture for Anora? For Sean Baker, it is returning to his filmmaking roots and the Cannes Film Festival, where he also took the 2024 Palme d’Or for Anora. In this case he isn’t directing, instead leaving that to longtime collaborator Shih-Ching Tsou, who worked as a producer with him on earlier films including Starlet, Tangerine, The Florida Project and Red Rocket. The pair also co-directed a film called Take Out 21 years ago, and it has taken that long for Shih-Ching to take the reins of a second film, co-writing the script for Left-Handed Girl with Baker, who also serves as a producer and sole film editor. It premiered today in Cannes as part of Critics’ Week.
Set in a bustling Taiwanese night market that also seems like a Melrose Place-style food court, the film is focused almost entirely on its female characters: mother Sho-Fen (Janel Tsai), older teen daughter I-Ann (Shih-Yuan Ma), and the youngest child I-Jing (an adorable Nina Ye). Yes there are men here, most notably co-worker Johnny (Brando Hiang), who figure into the action, as well as a grandfather who warns left-handed I-Jing to never use what he terms as “the devil’s hand.” This was the most frightening part for me as I am completely left-handed and had to type this review with my right out of fear.
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All that aside, the real center of it all is this family of three generations of females, their quest to make it in the city of Taipei after living in the countryside and the well-hidden secrets and lies permeating this clan where everyone seems to be hiding something — except maybe young I-Jing, who is most content to traverse the expansive night market or play with her newfound pet meerkat (animal lovers, beware the fate of this particular cast member).
Returning to her own home of Taiwan, filmmaker Shih-Ching is content to create a universally recognizable family unit here with Sho-Fen trying to make it on her own while bringing up the ever-independent I-Ann, who is full of wanderlust and an eye for the boys, while spending much of her time saddled with the responsibility of looking after little sister I-Jing. The film darts back and forth between the stories and struggles of this family who live in a society clearly stressing morals and keeping up proper appearances. The pace is leisurely and atmospheric, and we get to know just who they are. Or so we think, until the film takes a real left-handed turn itself at the 60th birthday celebration of the family matriarch. To put it kindly, all hell breaks loose as those closely-kept secrets start exploding into the open.
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It is at this point that the character-driven tale moves heavily into melodrama territory — a Taiwanese soap opera, as it were — and it is also here that Shih-Ching shows strong command of storytelling and shifting tones with high dramatics that could careen out of control but never do, instead keeping us on the edge of our seats. Baker’s tight editing really comes into play here and proves worthy of Douglas Sirk at his height. Ultimately what holds it all together are the strong performances all around. These fine actresses make it entirely watchable.
Producers are Shih-Ching, Baker, Mike Goodridge, Jean Labadie and Alice Labadie.
Title: Left-Handed Girl
Festival: Cannes (Critics’ Week)
Sales agent: Le Pacte
Director: Shih-Ching Tsou
Screenwriters: Shih-Ching-Tsou and Sean Baker
Cast: Janel Tsai, Shih-Yuan Ma, Nina Ye, Brando Huang
Running time: 1 hr 49 min
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Content shared from deadline.com.