Confetti

The story of a disadvantaged girl and the mother who never gives up on her, Ann Hu’s Confetti is a heart-warming but initially rather ordinary sort of film which transforms into something much more interesting as a result of a revelation halfway through. It’s a very personal film for the director and it’s a film with a mission, a US production with a clear eye on the Chinese market which hopes to change the way that the Chinese government approaches education.

Meimei (Harmonie He) is a bright child determined to get off to a good start on her first day at school. Her mother, Chen Lan (Zhu Zhu) is a cleaner at the school and can’t resist a peek through the classroom window, nervous as most parents are in that situation. Sadly, in this case her nerves are justified. Meimei claims that she understands the words written on the board, but when called to the front, she can’t even write her own name. The teacher scolds her. The other students laugh. It’s an awful first start.

Time goes by and it doesn’t get much better, until visiting American Thomas (George C Tronsrue), who is there to teach the kids English, realises that she has symptoms of dyslexia. He explains that this has nothing to do with her intelligence level and that her brain is just wired differently, but that she will need specialist help. The problem, as it soon becomes clear, is that such help is simply not available in China. With a crucial window of time available whilst Meimei’s brain is still flexible enough to respond to treatment, Thomas arranges for her and Lan to travel to the US and stay with his friend Helen (Amy Irving), a writer, in the hope of finding the help she needs there.

“Why would you want to go to America? it’s 36th in the world,” Lan is asked – and if it weren’t for Meiimei’s special needs, that would be a fair point. The fact that Chinese children are expected to begin school literate, the fact that most are to some extent bilingual by the age of eight, mean that the Chinese system as a whole does not come off badly here, whilst the film does not sugar coat the US experience – despite a lot of positive rhetoric, Meimei is swiftly dumped into a catch-all special needs class which doesn’t help her at all. Lan swiftly realises that further barriers must be overcome if the kid is to get what she needs. Helen, overwhelmed by the experience of hosting them, is reluctant to let them stay, but here the film sticks closely to formula, its path obvious from the start.

Whilst He is a fine young actor and makes Meimei a kid we can easily feel for, it’s Lan who is the film’s real focus, as we learn more about her and discover the reason why she’s fighting so hard for her daughter’s future. Zhu is excellent and her performance really elevates the film. An initially simple pretext expands to take in a host of other issues which will resonate with viewers all around the world. We also see the struggle faced by Lan and her husband (Li Yanan), who are trying to make their relationship work despite the distance, with little details related to the film’s central themes neatly woven into their story, giving us a deeper picture of how they relate to one another and to Meimei.

This is, of course, just one story, and cannot address every experience of dyslexia. It also has some uncomfortable moments, when Meimei’s right to education is treated as dependent on her intelligence, and when Jane reacts with horror to the implication that Meimei might be ‘on the spectrum’, feeding into stereotypical and misleading views about autism which are never subsequently addressed. There are, however, positive messages about what it means to be different, and statistics at the end emphasise how common dyslexia is, adding weight to the implicit argument that every country ought to acknowledge it and find ways of providing proper support.

Though it occasionally lapses into sentiment and never strays too far off the well-beaten track, Confetti has genuine heart and will do doubt charm a great many viewers. It’s an attractively shot, polished piece of work, and one hopes that it will reach those who really need to see it.