Mon­soon

Kit (Hen­ry Gold­ing) returns to Ho Chi Minh City after 30 years, hav­ing fled with his fam­i­ly dur­ing the Viet­nam war. Despite his her­itage, he is now almost a tourist in the city, eas­i­ly lost in the pan­de­mo­ni­um of traf­fic. His goal is to find a place to scat­ter his mother’s ash­es, but as he wan­ders, bewil­dered and over­whelmed, he strug­gles to find any emo­tion­al con­nec­tion to the places he once knew.

As with his first fea­ture, 2014’s Lilt­ing, writer/​direc­tor Hong Khaou doesn’t deal with the imme­dia­cies of tragedy. With­out visu­al­is­ing painful mem­o­ries or lost char­ac­ters, Mon­soon dwells sole­ly on the hol­low void left behind. This approach relies on Golding’s per­for­mance; his adrift demeanour when he’s alone tells the sto­ry of his loss.

Employ­ing the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty that made his pre­vi­ous com­ic per­for­mances in Crazy Rich Asians and Last Christ­mas so desir­able, the expres­sion behind his British reserve exudes an unwant­ed feel­ing of dis­place­ment. His dis­ap­point­ment at being unable to recog­nise the few child­hood haunts he still remem­bered, now paved over and for­got­ten, is pal­pa­ble. The writ­ing leaves room for the awk­ward silences and, lat­er, self-fla­gel­la­tion that lingers in the dis­com­fort of communication.

The film’s dia­logue pow­ers var­i­ous stun­ning­ly tac­tile sequences each led by Kit’s com­pan­ions: a rel­a­tive (David Tran); a lover (Park­er Sawyers); and a friend (Mol­ly Har­ris). Viet­nam sud­den­ly becomes less intim­i­dat­ing and the cam­era less hes­i­tant as Kit re-dis­cov­ers a sense of belong­ing. As he becomes more in touch with him­self and the land­scape – hold­ing cold beers, grip­ping the back of a motor­cy­cle, cut­ting lotus flow­ers – his roots regrow in new surroundings.

With his par­ents’ lega­cy almost erased after their untime­ly depar­ture, Kit dis­cov­ers much about the Viet­nam they left behind, as well as the one blos­som­ing in its place. Though the tow­er­ing sleek archi­tec­ture of Dis­trict 2 is cold and over­bear­ing at first, its soul is slow­ly uncov­ered through its youth­ful, vibrant inhab­i­tants. Kit’s rela­tion­ship with Lewis, an African-Amer­i­can whose father fought in the War, is espe­cial­ly poignant, as the pair mir­ror one another’s gen­er­a­tional trauma.

Com­par­a­tive­ly, they are refresh­ing­ly com­fort­able in their sex­u­al­i­ty – their con­nec­tion not just a sym­bol­ic bridge but a spe­cif­ic, sweet dynam­ic between one so open and one so lost yet guarded.

Khaou was born in Cam­bo­dia, but spent his child­hood in Viet­nam before he and his fam­i­ly fled, and the emo­tions of this expe­ri­ences shine through Golding’s char­ac­ter. Each inter­ac­tion rings true to the young immigrant’s expe­ri­ence. He cap­tures the care­ful nav­i­ga­tion of this emo­tion­al grey area, of appear­ing like you fit in and betray­ing your West­ern upbring­ing when you speak, and vice ver­sa. We see him torn three ways between loy­al­ty to his parent’s wish­es, respect for their deci­sions and a desire to find his own path.

This dichoto­my is one that Lulu Wang dealt with so mag­nif­i­cent­ly in The Farewell, though here it’s posthu­mous, with a char­ac­ter griev­ing not only for lost par­ents but for a lost time­line where his iden­ti­ty wasn’t split in two. Though these weighty con­flicts are only touched upon, the nuanced per­for­mances and the sim­ple script artic­u­late these sen­ti­ments potent­ly. Mon­soon is a hope­ful, con­sid­ered piece of cin­e­ma, qui­et­ly reveal­ing and care­ful in its res­o­lu­tion of this unique turmoil.

Catch an online pre­view of Mon­soon fol­lowed by a live Q&A with Hen­ry Gold­ing, Park­er Sawyers and Hong Khaou on 23 Sep­tem­ber – tick­ets avail­able here.