Grab Lunch instead
a Dcard true story gets the big screen treatment in taiwan’s own more wholesome, less sordid answer to twitter-turned-cinema ‘zola’. sort of.
my best friend’s breakfast
Director: Ryan Tu • Writer: Ryan Tu
Starring: Moon Lee, Eric Chou, Jean Ho, Edison Song, SHOU, Yu Lee, Leo Huang, Ko Cheng, Lin He-syuan, Lilian Zhang, Jean Hung
Taiwan • 1hr 59mins
Opens Hong Kong May 12 • IIA
Grade: C+
In 2020 Janicza Bravo directed what might be the first feature film ever to be based on an extended Twitter thread, Zola. That true-life film was a violent, drug-fuelled stripper road trip saga that made a splash at Sundance. Zola is neither as clever nor as original as it thinks it is, but it is… curious. Are social media platforms the future of source material for films? Who knows?
It would seem the Taiwanese social media platform Dcard has spawned its own Zola, although My Best Friend’s Breakfast | 我吃了那男孩一整年的早餐 has less sex, less blood, less drug use, and less bad language. But it too claims to be based on the unlikely true story that unfolded at Fu Jen Catholic University (which explains the lack of drugs and strippers), shared on the platform in 2015, adapted into a novel in 2016 and now this film. Writer-director Ryan Tu collected half his supporting players from his admittedly addictive soapy Netflix hit series Light the Night for his first feature film, which is equally soapy but far less fun. By turning it into a high school romance Tu also neuters the action to make it more palatable to younger audiences. It’s conservative. It’s unthreatening. It’s dull.
Yes, there will be a moment when someone falls in that pool
The story unfolds at a high school that has its own dorms for some reason, and where the so-called campus beauty queen, Qi-ran (Jean Ho) manages a legion of admirers, even though she’s in love (here we go) with local bad boy/mechanic Hao-wei (boybander SHOU of W0LF(S)). Regardless of her romance with him, she’s been receiving anonymous breakfasts in her locker since the school year started. Being ideally rail thin, Qi-ran lets BFF Wei-xin (Moon Lee) have the food. Wei-xin has been gorging for years, using food as an emotional crutch in the wake of her parents’ divorce. In any other circumstance this is called the eating disorder it is, but this is a watery teen romance so it’s “cute” or something.
Anyway, Wei-xin develops a crush on her guitar teacher You-quan (singer/songwriter Eric Chou in his first film), who she’s getting lessons from because she was guilted into performing at the annual school talent show (?) by the guitar club leader Yuan-shou (Edison Song) who – wait for it – has a crush on Wei-xin. Oh don’t worry. He’s the object of another guitar club member’s affection, a boy (gasp, or laugh as the Hong Kong preview audience did), so he’s not undesirable? My Best Friend's Breakfast is a love sextangle. There’s plenty to go around.
Character development: Pretty; eats food
Aside from the fact that we’ve got Grease up in here with all the late-20 or early 30-somethings playing teenagers, Breakfast is peak chaste teen drama. At times Tu seems to be flirting with same ambling, loosey-goosey charms of Giddens Ko’s You Are the Apple of My Eye, which, for all its flaws remains the Taiwan rom-com standard bearer, but he cleaves closely to genre convention. Tu the writer is so enamoured by the stranger-than-fiction nature of the story (the so-called Breakfast Couple got married in 2018) he gave Tu the director nothing to work with. There’s no visual creativity on display, and Tu never delves into the peculiarities of the premise: Why woo someone with food? Did the anonymity ever feel threatening to the woman involved? How is an emotional connection kindled before you even meet? That’s a question we’ve all been wrestling with since the dawn of internet/app dating (and if we’re honest, personal ads) but Tu never goes there.
Though Wei-xin’s eating habits are brushed off as a personality quirk rather than a serious psychological disorder – and yeah, it’s an issue because this is the tic the entire story is built on – the bigger hurdle to any kind of appeal is the bland cast, each of whom carries the same vaguely beatific expression throughout. Lee can be a compelling screen presence – she was believably conflicted in the low-key scorcher Terrorizers – but Chou’s stage charisma doesn’t carry to the screen. The rest of the characters are sketches and archetypes: Qi-ran is pretty (seriously that’s her personality), Hao-wei is “trouble,” Yuan-shou is goofy, Wei-xin’s mother (Esther Liu) is a bitch. Next. My Best Friend’s Breakfast can’t even declare coming-of-age status, as no one really matures or learns: there are no stakes. This would be a better MV. DEK
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