DEAR EX

Taiwan, 2018, 100 minutes, Colour.
Roy Chu, Ying- Xuan Hsieh, Spark Chen, Joseph Huang.
Directed by Kidding Hsu, Mag Hsu..

This is a Taiwanese film, winner of several awards, serious themes and some comic touches. While it played well locally, it perhaps is too much immersed in its culture and may not travel so well.

The basic theme is how to handle complexities of sexual orientation.

The film opens with a wife complaining loudly (very loudly) when her husband dies. The issue is the inheritance of his insurance and the beneficiaries of his will. He has come out to her and left her to live with a young lover and has named him as the beneficiary. The wife is upset for herself but also for her teenage son – who is somewhat rebellious and clashes with her throughout the whole film.

As the film goes on, the lover becomes more sympathetic, doted on by his mother, looking after the husband after he left his family, especially during his illness. They have been associated with theatre and in the background there are rehearsals for and a performance of a musical called Bali.

The teenager does want to sort out his situation, knowing the orientation of his father and accepting this, wearied and wary of his mother’s constant complaints, going to stay with the lover who really wants him to leave.

The film illustrates the emergence of themes of homosexuality and orientation in Asian films as the 21st-century developed.