Review of Yi Yi (2000) by Lester Y — 10 Nov 2009

To me, like most others, the ideal length for a feature film is 90 minutes. Honestly, I think I've only seen a handful of films that go past the two and a half hour mark and I probably have undiagnosed ADD or something. Anyway, I guess the point is that I was more than a little hesitant on watching this movie as it's 3 hours long but I'm glad I invested the time (and the coveted Netflix top spot) for a wonderful epic like Yi-Yi.

It's a sweeping family drama told through three main perspectives of a middle-class family in Taiwan: a white-collar father, his teenage daughter and his young son (I think he's 10). The father comes face to face with his high school sweetheart, the daughter is thrust in the middle of a love triangle, and the son deals with the cruelty of his peers. All the while, their grandmother suffers from a coma and their mother suffers a nervous breakdown.

The film starts off pretty chaotically as the numerous characters are introduced, but as the film goes on, the more simple and the more investing it gets. Complemented with some terrific performances, the characters are lovingly and delicately painted as they stand at significant junctures in their lives, along with the ebbs and flows and the minutiae of daily life in Taiwan (which is both good and kind of dull). They deal with these problems in a realistic, emotionally complex way that connects to every viewer. The result is a movie that's devastating, honest, joyful, profound, gentle, exciting, funny, lucid, and most of all, human. See it.