Mother of a Mess
Tom Lin’s Huang Xi’s Mother-daughter drama is saved by a solid script and the ’tubes to say not all women are mothers.
Daughter’s Daughter
Director: Huang Xi • Writer: Huang Xi
Starring: Sylvia Chang, Karena Lam, Eugenie Liu
Taiwan • 2hrs 6mins
Opens Hong Kong Dec 12 • IIA
Grade: B
The logline on Daughter’s Daughter | 女兒的女兒 will go something like this: A retired woman must decide if she wants to become a mother again when one of her two grown daughters dies, leaving her the legal guardian of a viable embryo.
Fortunately this is not a pro-life screed or some kind of anti-surrogacy propaganda, but your engagement with director Huang Xi’s (Missing Johnny) sophomore effort will be directly proportional to how much of star and co-producer Sylvia Chang Ai-chia’s signature brand of middle-aged lady you can handle. You know the one, that charming mix of sweetly doddering and sucking at life. It will also rely on your willingness to tromp over the same territory Tom Lin did in the more visually arresting Yen and Ai-lee – last week – that being an introspective examination of the complex relationship between mothers and daughters. Need more? There’s also a loose thread connecting to Chang’s films as director, like 20 30 40 and Love Education; slow burning portraits of women at different ages and stages of life.
Of course there’s more to Daughter’s Daughter than just the embryo dilemma, and in fact the embryo is a footnote in a larger story about a woman wrestling with her past, her failures, her grief and wondering whether she should grab a chance at a do-over. But maybe it shouldn’t have been. Huang gets solid performances from her cast and there are undoubtedly more than a few spot-on observations, but Daughter is overstuffed with multi-generational drama, and almost sputters to a dead stop on a few occasions. Still, co-producer Hou Hsiao-hsien’s long takes and static camera work are all over this, so if you’re curious as to what Hou protégés look like, this is your chance.
The picture of mother-daughter harmony
Daughter starts with retirement age Jin Aixia (Chang) walking along an American highway, clearly lost in thought. She may be recalling a time the title card tells us is 2018, when she wound up in hospital in Taipei with a leg injury and waited for a room with the daughter she gave away as a 16-year-old, Emma (Karena Lam Ka-yan). The two have just recently reconnected. Also at the hospital was Aixia’s own mother, Shen Yan-hua (Alannah Ong/Lam Siu-cham, A Guilty Conscience), the mastermind behind handing Emma off to foster parents 48 years before. Shen nonetheless managed to form a relationship with Emma and her father Johnny (Winston Chao Wen-hsuan, The Meg) while living in New York, and Emma has escorted the ageing, dementia-suffering Shen back to Taipei and into Aixia’s care. Late to the scene was the daughter Aixia chose to have, Fan Zuer (Eugenie Liu Yi-er, Old Fox), the rebellious child and a lesbian with a long-term partner, Jiayi (Tracy Chou Tsai-shih).
Flash forward to “present” and Zuer and Jiayi are staying in a New York Airbnb near a kick-ass bodega while trying to conceive a baby via in vitro. After their awkward encounter in Taipei, it would appear Zuer and Emma have made friends, and they’re all hanging out with Johnny. Aixia is at home in Taiwan settling her mother into a care home when tragedy strikes: Zuer and Jiayi have died in a car wreck, and Aixia has to head to the States to deal with her estate. The estate includes a viable embryo she can leave frozen, donate, take to term via surrogate or terminate. It’s here Aixia begins a reflection on the shit mothering, sense of obligation and garbage communication skills that estranged her from both her girls – habits she herself picked up from Shen.
Despite the generosity of scenes involving Chang dragging around a wheelie case and some creaky pacing that will send your brain into math class – if Aixia is 64 and Emma is (a fantastic looking) 48, how old is Zuer, and why do I care? – Huang’s script saves Daughter’s Daughter from teetering into the abyss of bloated melodrama. Even a third-act narrative curveball that could derail the whole film avoids disaster thanks to Lam’s performance. There’s a veracity to the way the three generations of women relate to each other, be it in all its thorniness or its contrarian “I want my mom!” moments that feels lived in. Chang can be insufferably noble when on screen alone, but Huang teams her with Liu, Lam or Ong more often than not, and it’s the dynamics Chang’s co-stars create with her individually that paint a more vivid bigger picture. Lam’s Emma is soothing as the pragmatist when Aixia gets unreasonably bitchy when visiting the fertility clinic; there’s always a soothing one. Ong’s casual regurgitation of 50-year-old solutions to baby issues lets Chang’s silence speak volumes. Liu stands out as the chosen daughter who has to bear that burden. She hates her mother. She loves her mother. She doesn’t need her. She needs her badly. Huang has a tremendous feel for the nuances of feminine family – and kudos for making the tension between Zuer and Aixia about a pile of shit that has zero to do with the fact she’s in a same sex partnership. But ultimately it’s all very stately and refined, and (clutch your pearls) not as emotionally charged as it should be. You understand these women in the end. You just don’t feel them.