Dad, I'm Sorry

When it comes to the big international film awards, most countries like to play it safe, choosing material which is naturally suited to US tastes. Vietnam, however, is another matter entirely. Its submission for the 2022 Oscars laughs in the face of such propriety. Alongside the tragic reflections on war and the moody philosophical dramas, it’s two hours of freewheeling zany comedy, and though it does take some time out to address a serious issue, there are no sophisticated moral concerns here, just the timeworn message that you ought to hug your loved ones whilst you can.

It begins with an introduction to the characters in the style of popular Eastern action movies. We meet them one by one as a small boy runs down an alleyway bumping into people and knocking things over. This also introduces us to the location where most of the action is set. It’s home to a close-knit community of people, most of whom are related and many of whom work for one another or have strong connections rooted in their pasts. They have one other thing in common: they’re all dirt poor and at the bottom of the social heap. They thrive on gossip, air their dirty laundry in public and bicker continually, but underlying it all is a deep love which convinces them that they can take on the world.

Like many of Vietnam’s poorest districts, the alley is frequently flooded. Sometimes it’s flooded on purpose, as twentyish YouTube star Quan (Tuan Tran) pulls another wacky stunt, at everyone else’s expense, to impress his followers. He knows the language of the modern world, and although he isn’t especially pretty from the front, but when he turns around and walks away from the camera in just his underwear, we can see how he’s managing to make more money than the rest of the street combined with only a webcam. This isn’t much help to the others, though, as his father Ba Sang (Tran Thanh, who also directs) stubbornly refuses to accept help from anyone. Sang doesn’t believe that he ought to be dependent on anyone, yet tries, with his meagre earnings and limited skills, to take care of everyone else, including the infant Bu Tot (brought to life in a wonderfully sullen performance by Ngan Chi). The clash between Quan and Sang’s values lies at the heart of the film, yet loses prominence in the second half when the film takes a sudden lurch in an unexpected direction, pulling a host of soap opera plot points out of nowhere and packing in so much emotional drama that the actors seem overwhelmed and uncertain what’s wanted of them.

A massive hit on home turf, the film benefits from much higher production values than Vietnamese people are used to in home grown cinema (outside the arthouse), but it’s likely to struggle internationally, where the absence of distracting in-jokes makes its narrative shortcomings all the more apparent. The comedy built around relatives who exploit Sang’s good-heartedness (and, in one case, start fights every ten minutes) has some universal resonance but outstays its welcome, and as the mood shifts, Tranh and co-director Ngoc Dang Vu seen to lose their way. Ultimately this is one of those films which presses specific cultural buttons very well but struggles to generate wider appeal.