Fresh off of his stellar Oscar winning run last year for Anora, Sean Baker’s first foray back into theaters is as a co-writer and producer of a Taiwanese film by director/writer Shih-Ching Tsou. Left-Handed Girl tracks the lives of single mother Shu-Fen (Janel Tsai) and her two daughters I-Ann (Shih-Yuan Ma) and I-Jing (Nina Ye) who all run a small restaurant kiosk in the heart of the famed night market in the Taiwanese capital city of Taipei. The family tries its best to make its way through working class life, but after their traditional grandfather forbids left handed I-Jing from using her “devil hand,” a domino effect begins that causes generations of family secrets begin to unravel.
If you’re at all familiar with Baker’s work as a filmmaker, even though he’s only a producer and co-writer on this film, you can clearly see markers of his influence within the story structure. Much of Left-Handed Girl is a slice of life film that merely follows the lives of the characters contained within, providing a glimpse of working class life for residents of Taipei. That means it has moments of levity and comedy where we see how Shu-Fen and her girls run their restaurant, I-Ann’s headstrong personality at work, and the caring nature of the owner of their neighboring kiosk. You also the downsides of being a working class family headed by a single parent as Shu-Yen struggles to pay rent for her kiosk at the risk of eviction, her clashes with her mother and sisters over her life choices and money struggles, and I-Ann’s affair with her married boss. It’s a reminder of the varied experience that working class people have the world over, a mixture of carefree life but with a sense of perilousness and dread always looming.
Tsou does well in presenting these everyday experiences in a way that is engaging and creates empathy and care for the characters; the audience feels as if they are living alongside the family, thus creating investment that keeps you engaged in seeing where the story goes and what happens with them. The cast, led by Ye and Ma, have a realistic chemistry that imparts a realistic sense of closeness and captures the various emotions involved in their complicated lives. The closeness doesn’t just describe their love for each other either, but also the frustration they engender with one another. Families can be complicated and no one evokes more emotion, positively or negatively, than the ones you love. Left-Handed Girl captures this dynamic well.
Complicated may be too soft a word for the dynamics that are uncovered in this film however, as Left-Handed Girl unravels to reveal a twist that finally puts all of our family’s issues out in full view. While the details must be left for you see unfold onscreen, the themes present in what happens are an emotional and fraught glimpse into the realities of generational trauma, particularly between mothers and daughters, and what shame and pressure filled relationships with our children can lead to. The fear that all kids have of disappointing their parents is intense and once inevitable mistakes happen for which parents castigate them, holding onto that shame can lead kids to compound their follies with even more missteps, no matter their age. The explosive third act twist is well acted by Tsai and Ma and is where the cast chemistry built throughout truly pays off. It elevates Left-Handed Girl from just a pretty good slice of life film to something very good with interesting things to say about family, honesty, and life in general. Tsou has created a fantastic film that is well worth checking out.
Image: Netflix
