Don’t Call Me…
Writer-director Amos Why is at it again, this time taking a swipe at our beloved/hated mobile phones.
Everyphone Everywhere
Director: Amos Why • Writers: Frankie Chung, Kong Yu-sing, Amos Why
Starring: Endy Chow, Peter Chan, Rosa Maria Velasco, Amy Tang, Henick Chou, Cecilia Choi
Hong Kong • 1hr 31mins
Opens Hong Kong August 17 • IIB
Grade: B
How does your stomach react when you realise you’ve left your precious iPhone or Galaxy at home in a rush to get to work? Even though most of us have by now had our phones surgically attached to our bodies somewhere, it has to happen occasionally, right? Do you break into a cold sweat? Do you feel nauseous all day? Or do you say “Fuck that!” and go home, get the phone, and get to work late? This is the jumping-off point for the latest by Amos Why/Wong Ho-yin, Everyphone Everywhere | 全個世界都有電話.
It is quite possible that all of writer-director Why’s work to now has been leading to this point. Everyphone rolls the carefully observed interpersonal dynamics of his 2014 debut Dot 2 Dot, the generational, wealth and evolving social issues of 2018’s Napping Kid, and the jaundiced eye of the fraught new world order of Far Far Away into his most thematically ambitious film to date. Everyphone Everywhere works on a level that is universal, organically demonstrating our love-hate relationships with our mobile phones, and how they’ve become entrenched, for better and for worse, in our lives. But as co-written by frequent Kiwi Chow Kwun-wai collaborator Frankie Chung Wang-kit and Kong Yu-sing, Why adds a layer of specificity that will speak to Hongkongers and positions our phones as weaponised tech to be wary of, and as a symbol of some of the drastic changes the city has seen since 1997.
Remember those?
Chung Chit (Endy Chow Kwok-yin, The Sunny Side of the Street, in a fittingly frazzled everyman performance) is a designer living on Cheung Chau with his florist wife Ivy (Cecilia Choi). One afternoon he rushes to catch a ferry to city for a lunch date and leaves his phone behind. Naturally, this is a minor disaster. Chit is supposed to meet up with old schoolmates, who vowed to reunite 25 years after graduating high school and getting their first phones. The others are Raymond So (Mad Fate’s Peter Chan Charm-man, showing off his versatility), a shady AF real estate type who’s planning on emigrating with his daughter Yanki (Pomato’s Amy Tang Lai-ying), and hotshot businesswoman Ana Lee (a low-key graceful Rosa Maria Velasco) who finds herself in a crappy marriage. Chit gets lost in Kwun Tong trying to find the private kitchen, he drags his wife into his dilemma – hers is the only phone number he knows – and gets her to call Ana, who’s waiting for the other two. That’s awkward. Before lunch, Raymond is trying to re-secure his hacked phone. That’s awkward too, because Raymond is shady. Proving the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, Yanki is at home running her own phone scam on an introverted nerd (Henick Chou Hon-ning, A Light Never Goes Out) for some extra cash. Lo and behold, he knows a few things about Ana’s husband he wouldn’t mind sharing with her.
It may not be a perfect film, but Everyphone Everywhere is most definitely a resonant one. The sneaky omnipresence of our smartphones throws the work-life balance decidedly deeper into the work end, as demonstrated by Ana’s inability to just switch off for one lunch hour. Chit is, quite literally, lost without his, as many of us would be with places to be and no idea how to get there without an app. These are the devils and angels on our shoulders that everyone, everywhere will recognise. But phones have long since shown off a sinister side, as tools for surveillance (by the state and in the personal realm), and that document every minute of every day, very often by choice. Why and Co. thread these ideas into the narrative organically and so it speaks to locals on another level. It’s no accident the trio of old friends is having lunch in “A new era,” and a string of cameos and small roles with Adam Wong Sau-ping, Bonde Sham Lok-yi, Patra Au Ka-man, Alan Yeung Wai-leun and Ah Jeng (Bonnie Wong Ching-yi) make no effort to hide who Why is talking to.
Why manages to avoid condemning those same phones, which can also bring us together and occasionally be a tool of enlightenment, as the trio discovers by the time lunch is over. As he usually does, and with the extra oomph of Far Far Away, Why lets DOP Leung Ming-kai loose to exploit the urban cityscape for all it’s worth – Chit’s industrial estate waking fever dream is particularly vivid – and this time he taps its invasive aural side to tell the story – the buses, clanging doors, shrieking neighbours and, yes, beeping and vibrating phones. Everyphone should be listened to as much as looked at. Could he have gone deeper? Probably, but it still raises plenty of questions, and it’s Why’s most accomplished film so far. His next is supposedly about a Hong Kong chef. Maybe we’ll be able to smell that one. —DEK