Movie Review: Department Q: A CONSPIRACY OF FAITH (2016) AAA

Nexflix streaming:Subtitles

This is the third of the Department Q series  . . . and probably the most painful and "dark" to watch.  Its about the brutality and kidnapping by a serial killer.  But if your are into detective stories, this one is a classic (My triple A rating), will keep you at the edge of your seat.  A movie that must not be missed.

Storyline
An old note is found in a bottle in Jutland which has traveled very long across the ocean a long time ago. The note is hard to decipher, but when the Danish investigator from Section Q receives it, the odd personalities within the section find a new angle on it and try to unveil yet another old and diabolic case even though the lead is cold.

Other Reviews:
A Conspiracy of Faith is a thriller but one with quite a differing approach. It dispenses with the comedy of the earlier film and instead goes for a pretty downbeat approach. Hardly surprising really when you consider that the story is about two cops investigating the case of two abducted children. This kind of material is always one that is going to be somewhat dark, another recent north European film The Treatment (2014) dealt with this subject in a very head on manner and consequently was very disturbing indeed in places. A Conspiracy of Faith only goes so far with its dark material and by the end of the film slightly dissipates its impact further by having its narrative go into more standard thriller territory. But despite that, this is still another compelling bit of Nordic noir.

This is the best of the three Department Q films in my opinion, it is not darker as such, off course the fact that its about kids getting taken is just not very nice to think about, but the cases they are working on are dark and we are beginning to know the characters and their different persona's and they really capture many great aspects of the characters and their interaction with other people.

Serial killers are always strange and dark, but this one is very well portrayed by Pål Sverre Hagen, he really seems like this nice guy, good looking (a Norwegian Ryan Gosling), well spoken, calm and trustworthy. But deep down he is just a bad bad man, with a terrible past and a twisted mind.

It might seem that there is a decline in the movies, but this is still rock solid. I can only imagine that the book is even more than that. It has characters from the previous movies (and books of course) and has a case that is pretty strong. You don't have the urgent feeling and the playfulness it had in the previous movies. As dark as they got, you always had something light in them.

As the previous Department Q films, this haunting crime-film is all about the darkest and most twisted evil people, and they're terrible actions towards innocent people. In this film it also deals with children, so it's very gripping. As a Norwegian I'm delighted to see Norwegians actors in this film, they really brings life to the film, acting in a convincing way. It even has a Norwegian director. But this it danish crime at it's very very best.

Movie Review: PAPA (2015) C-

Bad movie and boring about Ernest Hemingway and his late life in Cuba.

From other reviews: Despite its obvious sincerity of purpose, and the cachet of its having been filmed on locations where the real-life drama actually unfolded, “Papa: Hemingway in Cuba” is disappointingly plodding and ham-fistedly obvious in its attempts to offer an up-close and personal portrait of a mood-swinging, self-loathing 59-year-old Ernest Hemingway

The film was directed by noted producer Bob Yari, his second effort, but it smacked of something that had problems all along the way, including sound design and story structure. There was absolutely no life to the story, and there were several bad casting choices…including Papa Hemingway…and the film lands with a thud rather than a heralding for the man, image and essence of the legendary writer. Movie Review: PAPA (2015) C-Movie Review: PAPA (2015) C-

See all my reviews at http://movieandtvreviewsforgrownups.blogspot.com/

Foreign Movie review: DUKHTAR (2015) A+

A excellent movie about the abominable treatment of women in Pakistan.   Tells the story of women forced into marriage at 13 years old to older men for political reasons.  Must have caused a political storm when it was released in Pakistan.

Other Reviews:
Early in Dukhtar ("Daughter"), a Pakistani drama screening at this year's Chicago South Asian Film Festival, writer-director Afia Nathaniel presents a striking image of a woman preparing dinner for her husband in their small, mountainside home. A post in the middle of the home's single room divides the wide-screen frame in half; the wife, Allah Rakhi, sits on the left side in darkness while the husband, Tor Gul, sits on the right side in light. Neither looks at the other—until Allah Rakhi crosses the frame, you might think that the home has two rooms. This is a clever way of illustrating the division between these two characters, as well as divisions between men and women in traditional Pakistani society. The moment isn't subtle, but like much in Dukhtar it gains from a certain elemental power. With its stark imagery and characterizations, the film often feels like a folktale, even though it takes place in the present and addresses ongoing social concerns.

See all my reviews at http://movieandtvreviewsforgrownups.blogspot.com/

Movie Review: IRRATIONAL MAN (2015) B-

This Woody Allen movie was one of his weakest.  Essentially in the plot line we meet a very unhappy, bored and depressed man . . . who happens to be a College Philosophy teacher. (PS Woody loves to skewer pompous college teachers who thinks they are holier than god.)

It turns out that this teacher could be anyone who has been at the same job for many years and has discovered that they personally have not made a great difference in world affairs even though that may have participated in all sorts of noble causes. 

The male lead, in this case Joaquin Phoenix, who has not found happiness, acts in a way that is really not consistent with his personality.  At least in another recent movie: Hector and The Search For Happiness, http://movieandtvreviewsforgrownups.blogspot.com/search?q=hector, 

Hector does something positive about the similar situation he finds himself.

Other Reviewers Views: 

We were quite skeptical seeing this film as it received mixed reviews. However all three of us are glad we went for it. As expected it's a somewhat twisted Woody film and that's what makes it so interesting. The plot kept us all entertained throughout! I thought Joaquin Phoenix did a great job in this and as much as I hate Emma Stone I thought she was equally great. I loved the ending!!

Woody Allen is my favorite director so it pains me to say it, but this movie just not any good. In fact it's actually quite bad. Joaquin Phoenix seems at times separated from his character and all that philosophy Woody typically infuses somewhat subtly into his films whacks you over the head here as the main character is a philosopher himself. Not sure I cracked a smile for the duration of the film, which is a shame. If you're looking for your Allen fix, better wait til next year.

Movie Review: HECTOR AND THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS (2014) AA+

Great movie if you the least bit depressed and need a little boost.  For the happy well balanced person, like my spouse, Sandy, the rating is A.

Leaving behind a career as a psychiatrist, a bored and discontented Hector begins a journey across the planet in search of genuine happiness. He has a financially secure practice, a beautiful and loving fiancee who keeps his home life in perfect balance and a group of smart and engaging friends. Along the way, he experiences a succession of unusual adventures that not only alters his perspective, but provides him with a a set of rules for happiness..

From Another Review: 

This movie is really a journey on a number of levels. As Hector travels the globe in search of that elusive quality of happiness, he also is going on a personal journey of discovery on a deeper level.Yet, underneath it all, Hector is troubled . . . wondering why he feels empty inside and believes he has not fully experienced life to its fullest.

That fact is thrown in his face by one of his patients, who bluntly tells him he’s really just a shell of a man, only superficially dealing with his patients and not delivering the proper counseling he could give if he was a man of more substance.

Hector decides to take off on a fairly unplanned journey to discover, he hopes, the essence of what makes one truly happy and fulfilled.

There are many,  many clever aspects to this story, based on a French novel by Francois Lelord. Hilarious scenes show our psychiatrist's gift for physical comedy as he encounters Stellan Skarsgard, playing an uptight, rich and pleasure-seeking banker on his first flight.

Along the way, we are visually treated to cartoons and scribblings from the journal Hector keeps . . . and put up on the screen . . . that document his musings on the search for true happiness. ( See site for list below). Among my favorites are his observations that “Avoiding unhappiness is not the road to happiness,” and “Happiness is not a destination, but a state of being.”

Our reluctant hero makes his way from Shanghai to Tibet (and a spiritual encounter with a group of monks) to Africa, where he connects with an old school chum — and learns that doctor to the indigent is, in fact, gay.

The  tale veers back and forth from some over-the-top funny moments to ones that are poignant, sad and sometimes downright frightening . . . as when Hector is kidnapped and imprisoned by a gang of thugs in South Africa.

Ultimately, Hector ends up in Los Angeles, where he nervously meets with the woman who was his first true love, who he never gave up thinking about. That relationship was the main impediment to him going forward.

This film is a winner. It will not only entertain you, but also make you think about what it takes to bring happiness into your own life.

You will find the rules Hector finds for happiness at :http://jchyip.blogspot.com/2011/01/hectors-list-of-happiness.html. READ THEM!!

As an aside, A cousin of mine, who teaches at Harvard, and who's classes are filled to the brim, researches this subject. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Gilbert_(psychologist)

Movie Review: I'LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS (2014) FF-

Preface: Sandy I saw this movie by default. The movie we planned to see at the theater  wasn't available the evening we chose.

I found it very difficult to rate this movie.  It is a nightmare about very depressed people. No plot.  No beginning, middle or end. Just sad.  And yet it is advertised as a COMEDY. Psychologists who read this review may want to use this movie as a vehicle for a group session about depression. 

The point of the movie, that includes Blythe Danner in the lead . . . (who's claim to fame is acting as a well know celebrity in a TV advertisement), may have been written to show how horrible getting old could be.

As a widowed very lonely and sad 70ish year old women, she  apparently has no interests other than meeting with some widowed cronies in a retirement club every so often.  Her dog dies. Her new "boyfriend" (who she adores after 2 dates) dies, and the movie ends with her adopting an old dog. Her human (intimate) relationships are almost nonexistent . . . except for a young man who she meets along the way. By the way, he was depressed also, but at least they had some sort of relationship.

But the most interesting and amazing aspect of this movie is the very favorable reviews it received on RottenTomatoes.  http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ill_see_you_in_my_dreams/. 

A typical Review from RottenTomatoes:

"I'll See You in My Dreams is delicate and nuanced, with writing that rejects, or at least reshapes, the cliches of movies about people facing the glare of their sunset years".

The ad for the film, that follows, is absolutely amazing.  Turn it upside down and that's my review.

"In this vibrant, funny, and heartfelt film, a widow and former songstress discovers that life can begin anew at any age. With the support of three loyal girlfriends, Carol (Blythe Danner) decides to embrace the world, embarking on an unlikely friendship with her pool maintenance man, pursuing a new love interest , and reconnecting with her daughter."

TV SERIES REVIEW: OLIVE KITTERAGE (2014) DDDF

Sorry I'm a little late with this review.  An earlier review could have relieved you of much pain.

This is a story of a mentally sick women, and her enablers, that does not fit into the category of conventional entertainment.  This story is in reality a case history that belongs in books  on abnormal psychology.  

I HAVE NO IDEA WHY ANYONE MADE A TV SERIES OUT OF THIS PAINFUL HORROR STORY.

And yet it got good reviews.  TRULY AMAZING!!!  Maybe not so amazing considering that the reviewers are paid by companies that are connected, in one  way or another, to HBO, the company that was responsible for the production of this monstrosity.

This is a synopsis of the series from Wikipedia with my comments: 

Olive Kitteridge is a misanthropic*, strict, retired schoolteacher (god help the children) who lives in the fictional seaside town of Crosby, Maine. (WW Comment: why wasn't she fired)? She is married to Henry Kitteridge, an absolute wimp /enabler who runs a pharmacy downtown, and has a troubled son named Christopher, who grows up to be a podiatrist. (It is a miracle that he survived her ugly hatred). For 25 years, Olive has experienced problems of depression, bereavement, jealousy, and friction with family members and friends.

*Misanthropy is the general hatred, distrust or distain of the human species or human nature. A misanthrope, or misanthropist is someone who holds such views or feelings. The word's origin is from Greek words μῖσος (misos, "hatred") and ἄνθρωπος (anthrōpos, "man, human"). 

TV Series: THE AMERICANS: Season 1 (2012) AAA

This first series (season) of "The Americans" follows Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, two KGB spies who pose as an American married couple living in 1980s Washington, D.C. One of the best spy stories I have ever seen.  Great character development, fast moving and interesting and complex plots.

From Wikipedia:

The Americans was created by Joe Weisberg, a former CIA officer. Despite its spy setting, Weisberg sought out to tell the story about a marriage."The Americans is at its core a marriage story. International relations is just an allegory for the human relations. Sometimes, when you’re struggling in your marriage or with your kid, it feels like life or death. For Philip and Elizabeth, it often is." Executive producer Joel Fields described the series as working different levels of reality: the fictional world of the marriage between Philip and Elizabeth, and the real world involving the characters' experiences during the Cold War.

"The most interesting thing I observed during my time at the CIA was the family life of agents who served abroad with kids and spouses. The reality is that mostly they’re just people going about their lives. The job is one element, and trying to depict the issues they face just seemed like something that, if we could bring it to television in a realistic way, would be new."

—Joe Weisberg, creator and showrunner of The Americans

Working at the CIA, which Weisberg later described as a mistake, has helped him develop several storylines in the series, basing some plot lines on real-life stories, and integrating several things he learned in his training, such as dead drops and communication protocols. Weisberg was fascinated by stories he had heard from agents who served abroad as spies, while raising their families. He was interested in bringing that concept to television, with the idea of a family of spies, rather than just one person. Weisberg also said how the CIA inadvertently gave him the idea for creating a series around spies, explaining, "While I was taking the polygraph exam to get in, they asked the question, 'Are you joining the CIA in order to gain experience about the intelligence community so that you can write about it later -- which had never occurred to me. I was totally joining the CIA because I wanted to be a spy. But the second they asked that question…then I thought, 'Now I'm going to fail the test.'

Weisberg was partially influenced by the events of the Illegals Program to write a pilot script for the series. His research material included notes on the KGB's Cold War left by Vasili Mitrokhin and conversations with some of his former colleagues at the CIA. He stated that, unlike the circumstances involving the 2010 Russian spy ring, he had opted to set the story in the early 1980s because "a modern day [setting] didn't seem like a good idea", adding, "People were both shocked and simultaneously shrugged at the [2010] scandal because it didn't seem like we were really enemies with Russia anymore. An obvious way to remedy that for television was to stick it back in the Cold War. At first, the '70s appealed to me just because I loved the hair and the music. But can you think of a better time than the '80s with Ronald Reagan yelling about the evil empire?"

Great American Music: Broadway Musicals (2010) A-

Very good review of the history of Broadway musicals, with an excellent instructor Bill Messenger (see Picture below) . . . BUT . . . it was missing clips from the actual theater productions.  With the clips it would have been rated a AA.

FROM THE COURSE DESCRIPTION

Give my regards to Broadway... . Is it possible to read those lyrics, let alone hear them, without mentally filling in: Remember me to Herald Square? Have you begun to hum or sing it to yourself, with the words and notes carrying you back in time to the Broadway of 

George M. Cohan and the heyday of Tin Pan Alley?

For most people who've grown up with and shared America's musical heritage, such a phrase opens the floodgates to a wealth of memories and feelings because, after all, that's what great songs do.

What a delight, then, to be able to promise you the same experience in an entire course. For in Professor Bill Messenger's Great American Music: Broadway Musicals, you get the story and the music, as well—and not only in the examples expertly played by Professor Messenger at the piano to illustrate insights, techniques, or subtleties of composition.

You'll also hear rare recordings of groundbreaking artists such as Nora Bayes, the singer selected by Cohan to record his unofficial World War I anthem, "Over There,"and Fanny Brice, the great star immortalized in Funny Girl. And you'll hear contemporary recreations that reconstruct the sound of early musical theater, as well. You'll listen in on recorded interviews that take you behind the scenes of some of Broadway's biggest hits and most memorable moments.

Beyond Nostalgia: A Complete Learning Experience

But Great American Music: Broadway Musicals is far more than just an immersion in musical nostalgia. Professor Messenger ranges across the entire culture of which music is a part, teaching you some of the intricacies of musical composition and song construction—and how they were used to create specific effects—as well as the social and historical backdrop against which musical theater needs to be considered.

You'll learn, for example, how Jerome Kern dealt with what was perhaps Broadway's first attempt to use music's technical subtleties as a way to suggest time and place when he was writing Show Boat, deliberately incorporating into his music for "Ol' Man River" a five-note pentatonic scale often used in Negro spirituals.

Professor Messenger tells how "You're a Grand Old Flag," today one of Cohan's most memorable songs, was greeted with dismay and anger when Cohan introduced it in his 1906 musical, George Washington, Jr., with its original and affectionate title and lyric, "You're a Grand Old Rag." Though Cohan quickly rewrote the song in the form we know today, sheet music for the original version—at a time when sheet music was immensely popular—had already reached stores all over New York City. Visiting one store after another, Cohan managed to retrieve almost every copy, burning them and replacing them with the new version. Today, there are only a half-dozen very valuable copies of the original in existence.

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY (2013) D -

A total waste of 2 hours plus the cost of the tickets.  All the people I spoke to about this move told me that the acting was very good . . . and couldn't say much more about it except it was about a dysfunctional family.  In seeing the movie my hope that it was about some psychological problems in the family that would prove interesting to me.

As it turned out it was a miscellaneous hodgepodge of people in a family that had absolutely no insight into their serious psychological problems and were making no attempt to solve them by conventional means . . . such as consulting shrinks.  It also took place in the desolate plains of Oklahoma, which made absolutely no sense because the patriarchof the family was a an award winning poet who you would expect to be in an urban area, which would provide him with intellectual stimulation.

My best guess is that the play and the movie were produced as a showcase for a bunch of actors.  In fact, the final credits went out of the way to show pictures of the main characters . . . which support my theory.

Movie Review: NEBRASKA (2013) C

Very slow and sad movie about a group of selected people . . . and especially men . . . that live the the northern Midwest of this country.  A couple of themes run through the movie.   The barrenness of the people and land and the relationship between a son and his semi-demented father. 

My belief is that  people in the movie do not . . . in any way . . . represent the cross section of people of that area, which includes Montana and Nebraska, so I don't understand that thrust of the screen play . . . except to make fun of some unfortunate older men and women.

Done in black and white to emphasize the lifeless land in the fall or winter.  

From Rottom Tomatoes:  The one negative comment.  "The most overrated film of 2013. An implausible, relentlessly heart-tugging tale. It isn't a bad movie, but it also isn't a legitimate awards contender."

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (2013) AA

Sorry for the delay in this review.  This was one of the special movies of the year.  If you didn't take it seriously (that is, being one of the people hurt by the type of stock scam artists depicted in the movie), it was a great comedy.  Woody Allen couldn't do better.  

The acting by DiCaprio was the best ever.  The screenwriting was superb. 

I'm afraid that the people who didn't like the movie were either offended by the depravity or were those who buy into fly-by-night stock schemes and have great difficulty in analyzing the real value of a business or a product.  For those, I recommend watching SHARK TANK on ABC, following Krugman in the NY Times and reading Consumer Reports on a regular basis.

Sandy's son (my step son), had a different take on the movie. Among his other tasks at THE FINANCIAL TIMES he writes a regular opinion column.  It is shown below.  He views this type of scam as a new replacement for the gangster type mobs of years ago . . . where if you didn't pay what you owed, someone shot you in the kneecap.

Make way for more wolves of Wall Street

By Gary Silverman in New York

The people who once would have been gangsters can now be found in the darker corners of finance

Isuspect that many readers of the Financial Times will find something objectionable in Martin Scorsese’s latest film, The Wolf of Wall Street. Running at three hours, it explores the pleasures of snorting cocaine, swallowing sedatives, lying, stealing, cursing, cheating on your wife, hiding money in Switzerland, taking part in orgies and dwarf tossing.

But for anyone interested in business – and the way it is practised in New York – the movie is food for thought. Mr Scorsese is a leading chronicler of the American underworld, and he has documented a disturbing chapter in its evolution. The auteur himself has noticed that the kinds of people who used to do terrible things in his old mob films have found profitable homes in the darker corners of finance.

  
  
  

More

ON THIS STORY

• FT Alphaville The boiler rooms amongst us
• UK watchdog warns on graphenescams
• ‘Boiler room’ scam shut down
• Cyber security landscape changes
• Why film costume designers love Wall Street’s anti-heroes

GARY SILVERMAN

• Treat the jobless like animals
• A bus station Christmas
• Angry White Men, by MichaelKimmel
• De Blasio plays it safe

The Wolf of Wall Street is based on the memoirs of a New Yorker called Jordan Belfort. Before he was sent to a federal prison for 22 months in the last decade, he made millions of dollars in the 1980s and 1990s running a brokerage called Stratton Oakmont on Long Island (where I grew up). It specialised in a racket known as “pump and dump” – using high-pressure sales tactics to con people into buying dodgy stocks in smaller companies as a way to generate commissions.

By his own admission, Belfort is a bad person. After his release, he boasted to CNBC in 2007 that he had “played the game of crime very carefully for many, many years, and covered my tracks with zest and zeal”. As portrayed in the film by Leonardo DiCaprio, he is an archetypical Scorsese “wise guy”, familiar to anyone who has seen the director’s later Mafia movies, such as Goodfellas and Casino. He chases after the easy money, and flaunts it when he gets it. He cracks jokes with the boys – in this case, mostly former small-time pot dealers – and he cannot resist the blondes.

The big difference between Belfort and earlier Scorsese hoodlums is in their choice of weaponry. Belfort has no need to pick up a gun to make money. He never has to wield an ice pick or use his fists to take care of a business problem (although he punches his wife in the stomach when the marital going gets tough). Belfort only has to pick up a phone to become another Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci or Ray Liotta.

It makes for a very different initiation. In the old Mafia movies, a gangster made his bones – that is to say, qualified for membership – by killing someone. In this film,Belfort lets his fingers do the walking. At his first brokerage, the neophyte nogoodnik’s initial orders involve making 500 calls a day.

Yet Belfort soon learns he can get away with murder, as it were, with the right rap. At Stratton Oakmont, he inspires his troops by speaking of their telephones in martial terms. He describes the devices as M16s wielded by killers “who will not take no for an answer” when they are pushing a public offering. He tells them that, to get rich, they have to become “telephone f***ing terrorists”.

Guns in the movie are almost a symbol of low status. They are wielded by people who do not make the really big money. The first time a firearm is fired it is being used for target practice by Belfort’s pursuer, a strait-laced FBI agent who notes later, almost sheepishly: “You get a free handgun when you join the bureau.”

The agent ultimately brings down Belfort, but Mr Scorsese depicts the winner of the battle as a somewhat sad sack. Towards the end of the film, the agent is seen reading about the case in the Long Island newspaper Newsday as he rides the subway alone, surrounded by beaten-down commuters.

Belfort, on the other hand, emerges from prison with a career as a motivational speaker, teaching the poor saps in lesser burgs (the name of which was changed in the film to Auckland, New Zealand) how to sell stuff. The viewer is left with the sense that his story is not over.

Nor, I would argue, have we seen the last of the Belforts in our financial midst. Now that the wise guys can make serious money by picking up phones (or plugging in laptops, for that matter) rather than wielding guns, crime has become easier. What the economists call the barriers to entry have come down.

The gangsters in Mr Scorsese’s older oeuvre did dirty work; they saw the blood of their victims and heard their cries of pain. Belfort and his ilk found cleaner hustles. They were tough guys at a distance, and we will see more of them in the years to come. There are plenty of other people on Long Island who want to party.

Foreign Movie Review: THE SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA (1993) A to D

Available from Netflix

This film was rated 100% by the  Critics.   See http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the-scent-of-green-papaya/

Personally,  I could not get through the movie and had to quit at about the half way point.  Sandy liked it.  My opinion is best expressed by one review from rottentomatoes.

"This film is exactly why I don't like independent films. The director focuses more on the so-called "aesthetic" details of the film and they consume all aspects of it. He stuffed SO MUCH SYMBOLISM about how pure Mui (the young girl lead) was he practically beat us over the head with it. The characters are flat and ugly and speak maybe 1/8 of the time. I hated the music - it was SO repetitive and I was really glad when the dad ran away so I wouldn't have to listen to him strum on his stupid qin again. I'm being nice by giving it two stars because I liked the one scene where Mui cracks open the papaya and touches the seeds. Otherwise, blegh.

And here is another (positive) review by the critic Emanuel Levy:
"Toronto Film Festival 1993–I would like to single out “The Scent of the Green Papayas,” which I missed in Cannes Film fest (in May) and rushed to see in Toronto.

Almost wordless, and marked by great pictorial visuals, “The Scent of the Green Papayas” is one of the most beautiful films I have seen in years.  Directed by Hung Tran Anh, this Vietnamese-French co-production is set in Vietnam in the 1950s, when the country was under the French occupation. The film’s heroine is Mui, a 12-year old servant, who frames the sensitive tale with her delicate presence–and consistent point of view.

One of the picture’s great achievements, other than its gorgeous painterly tableaux, is that politics remains in the background and its impact is felt in a most subtle way.

 A major contribution to the cinematic literature of coming of age and growing pains, “The Scent of the Green Papayas” also provides a wry commentary on life’s unexpected twists and turns."

Another positive review:
"Little things mean a lot in the world of 10-year-old Mui, a girl who's trained to be a house servant in 1950s Vietnam. This film follows Mui as she grows up in pre-war Saigon, and finds quiet love with a family friend. Dialogue seems almost tertiary in this film that celebrates the senses, as the young girl discovers the world around her and marvels at every new sight, sound and scent she experiences while going about her workday life."