Spiritually if not narratively continuous with his 2013 debut 'Ilo Ilo' and 2019's 'Wet Season,' Chen's latest follows a father and son simultaneously navigating new marriages, and gets knottier from there.
Two weddings, held in relatively quick succession, encapsulate the social, economic and generational tensions driving “We Are All Strangers.” The first, between two bright-eyed only-just-adults, is an expensively aspirational, Instagram-tailored affair at a five-star Singapore hotel, complete with choreographed dance routines and an eye-watering champagne bill. The second, between two middle-aged people seeking a second or third chance in life, is a cheap and cheerful party at the groom’s noodle shop, with hand-strung balloons and only Tiger beer on offer. The kicker is that not only are the two events in the same family, but all four newlyweds must share the same small, shabby government apartment afterwards. Dreams swiftly turn to survival strategies in Anthony Chen‘s gentle, perceptive domestic saga, and love isn’t always enough to live on.
Premiering in competition at this year’s Berlinale, “We Are All Strangers” is the Singaporean writer-director’s fifth feature, following the 2023 one-two of refugee drama “Drift,” starring Cynthia Erivo, and Chinese love triangle “The Breaking Ice.” But it’s a return to the setting and sensibility of his first two: 2013’s low-key, class-conscious household study “Ilo Ilo,” which won him the Camera d’Or at Cannes, and 2019’s fraught teacher-student drama “Wet Season.” Chen now terms his three Singapore-set films a “Growing Up” trilogy, though they’re not bound by shared characters or narrative threads — while the name refers as much to Chen’s own development as a filmmaker over the last 13 years as any common coming-of-age theme.
Certainly, “We Are All Strangers” (a title destined to be confused with Andrew Haigh’s recent “All of Us Strangers”) is a mature and ambitious work. At 157 minutes, it’s wider in scope and scale than its more modestly sized predecessors — at points seemingly aiming for the human breadth and depth of prime Edward Yang. Occasionally it sags under the weight of its own best intentions, as Chen puts his characters through the wringer to contrive a kind of state-of-the-nation commentary, while laying on the sentimentality with a heavy touch. But the film is consistently involving and finally moving, sparked especially by Chen regular Yeo Yann Yann’s wonderful performance as an immigrant outsider in this family and society alike.
A middle-aged, Malaysian-born woman who moved to Singapore as a teenage factory worker and now makes a meager living as a “beer auntie” serving lecherous male drinkers, Yeo’s character Bee Hwa is an scrappy, enterprising survivor whose experience sets in relief the other characters’ varying degrees of social privilege. Tirelessly bubbly, she works the same tables fed by widowed noodle-shop owner Boon Kiat (Andi Lim), introduced preparing his signature hokkien mee dish in a lovingly patient, mouthwatering opening sequence. A good-humored flirtation between them gradually evolves into something deeper, and not a moment too soon: Sharing tight living quarters with her younger brother and his own new family, she’s desperate for a more independent life that she cannot afford.
Still, a relationship with Boon Kiat means weathering the disapproval of his 21-year-old son Junyang, played by Koh Jia Ler — the beguiling child lead of “Ilo Ilo” and “Wet Season,” now a soft-faced adult. A none-too-bright slacker, finishing his military service with little in the way of a forward plan, Junyang nonetheless regards his father’s vocation as beneath him, and Bee Hwa even more so. But he’s handsome and charismatic enough to have snared the heart of smart, well-to-do high school senior and piano prodigy Lydia (Regene Lim), to the consternation of her snobbish, God-fearing mother Tracy. “How can you trust a boy you met at a BTS concert?” she scolds her daughter.
Perhaps it’s a fair question, given that Lydia soon finds herself knocked up and cancelling her college plans. Cue the aforementioned wedding, lavish but hastily put together, and a sudden, drastic change in lifestyle, as she and Junyang are forced to live under the same roof as Boon Kiat and Bee Hwa, a cramped and fractious arrangement even before the baby’s arrival. That’s just the first act of Chen’s sprawling, tumultuous narrative, which takes in romantic strife, medical tragedy and a descent into criminal activity as this awkwardly blended family struggles to stay afloat, with both destiny and the national economy stacked against them at every turn.
It’s a lot of story to wrangle, with many intelligent, intriguing points of emphasis — most notably a timely, escalatingly sad subplot on the perilous hustle of the professional social-media influencer — but a number of loose threads too. In particular, the perspective of Lydia is a bit lost in the shuffle as she wrestles with the challenges of teen motherhood and class demotion. It’s mostly left to Bee Hwa, affectingly played by Yeo with an always-on energy that can’t hide a worn core of desperation, to counter the film’s portrayal of a modern Singapore still overwhelmingly in thrall to westernized, patriarchal capitalist principles.
Sometimes the film itself privileges the male perspective, right down to a sticky, too-literal needle-drop over the closing credits: Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son,” no less. But there are more restrained grace notes throughout, more quietly imbued with social and cultural meaning: a baby delighting in a bottle of counterfeit vitamin supplements as a makeshift rattle, an AI smart home system that responds less readily to Mandarin than English, or a cheap date for two lovers content to spend the day merely riding an air-conditioned public bus.