Rhetorical Analysis of Coming Home Again
An autobiographical essay by Korean-American novelist Chang-rae Lee, published in theNew Yorker back in 1995, is the spark for Wayne Wang's highly personal mother-son drama Coming Dwelling house Again. Lee is credited every bit co-screenwriter of the film, which describes the way a young writer named Chang-rae drops his day job and girlfriend in New York to take care of his mother, who is slowly dying of stomach cancer. Shot in a low-cal-filled San Francisco apartment, it'due south a far cry from dreary or depressing, just it also doesn't offer whatsoever easy mode to enter its emotional territory. Viewers who have gone through the experience of taking intendance of an ailing parent or relative may identify more fully with the slow-moving story.
A bigger question is whether such an inner-directed essay exploring the intimate psychology of the female parent-son bail contains enough narrative to make full a feature picture, especially in this instance where the action is claustrophobically fix near entirely in a unmarried location, like a stage play. Like to some other film that bowed in Toronto this year, The Friend, directed past Gabriela Cowperthwaite and based on an award-winning autobiographical Esquire article (coincidentally well-nigh a woman dying of cancer), it struggles to find cinematic ways to communicate the thoughts and feelings that are its original stuff.
The Bottom Line A female parent-son bond so delicately personal, it'southward hard to enter.
Wang, of class, is a veteran with a broad variety of films under his belt, from Maid in Manhattan toThe Joy Luck Social club, and he has dealt sensitively with the Asian American experience. Here, the backstory of protag Chang-rae (Justin Chon) is that he was accustomed at Exeter and moved up the status ladder, which meant moving away from his parents and losing the traditional close ties of Korean families. His homecoming is an endeavour to go back some of what he has lost, before it's too late to show his female parent how much he loves her. When nosotros lookout him irresolute Mom'south IV canteen or anxiously following her to the bathroom, it's difficult not to read guilt on his face.
And he cooks for her.
Food is equated with feelings and memories of the by for Chang-rae. He learned how to cook Korean dishes at her knee, by watching her ready the special cuts of meat and fish with all their spices and trimmings. Entire scenes document his prowess at preparing food the way she in one case did. Just the terrible irony is that the stomach cancer makes it impossible for her to eat or even swallow.
Merely a handful of characters add their feelings to this mother-son duet. Chang-rae'southward male parent (John Lie) makes himself and so scarce that it comes as a surprise he lives in the apartment. He's a college professor and he may have had an affair behind his wife's back. He shows his insensitivity by railing confronting the "sappy old love songs" his wife listens to, while he talks almost his newspaper on "the changing rhetoric of romantic love." These are faint clues to a long and unhappy marriage.
As well in denial over Mom's illness is Chang-rae'due south career-woman sister Jiyoung (Christina July Kim), whose concluding-minute inflow with her hubby upsets the family ecology for a spell.
In the primary scene that comes late in the film, Chang-rae fixes a magnificent dinner for New Year's Eve, using all his mother'due south recipes. The loving care he puts into slicing the short ribs and marinating the shrimp is all for her. Like a child who won't accept reality, he refuses to accept her illness on its well-nigh bones level — that she can no longer taste the food of his love. Information technology'due south a frustrating, embarrassing evening for all concerned and and then delicately acted by Chon and Jackie Chung, who luminously plays the mother, that it hits a note of aching sorrow and grief more effective than any show of desolation.
The film has an airy look to it thanks to cinematographer Richard Wong's diffused lighting through a multitude of windows. There is even a wall-size window betwixt the kitchen and the mother's ill room, which allows ii different scenes to be visible at one time, and suggests the intimate bond that Chang-rae struggles to keep alive between food and honey.
Production visitor: Eye for Asian American Media
Cast: Justin Chon, Jackie Chung, Christina July Kim, John Lie
Manager: Wayne Wang
Screenwriters: Wayne Wang, Chang-rae Lee, based on Lee'due south essay
Producer: Donald Young
Executive producers: Stephen Gong, Eunei Lee, Heidi Levitt, Jean Noh
Director of photography: Richard Wong
Product designers: Minseo Kang, Elyse Wang
Editors: Deirdre Slevin, Ashley Pagan
Venue: Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentations)
World sales: Asian Shadows (ICM Partners in U.S.)
86 minutes
Source: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/coming-home-again-review-1239558/
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