Lilting

Lilting is best in the quiet moments, of which there are many, where we patiently observe character interactions and how they’re processing their grief. It’s delicate and quiet, carefully choosing what needs to be communicated aloud and what shall remain subterranean. At times, this choice makes the film feel standoffish; removing us from a few of the uglier instances of human emotion, but it mostly lays bare the disorientating nature of loss and rebalancing your life in the aftermath.

The major problem with Lilting is a great premise that feels far too one sided, and inevitably spins its wheels a bit towards the end, but there’s enough quietly devastating scenes and strong acting to bandage over these problems. Ben Whishaw is one of our finest actors currently working, full of subtle facial work, and a deep vulnerability, which can give the impression of an emotional brittleness when used effectively. Lilting doesn’t give him enough to do, forcing his character to the sidelines too often, essentially making his grief a brief sketch despite an equally crippling sense of loss and isolation.

I’d have easily traded all of the scenes with Peter Bowles for more scenes depicting Whishaw’s character and the dead lover at the heart of the film (Andrew Leung). Bowles’ salty romantic interest for Junn (Cheng Pei Pei), the mother of the deceased and central focus of the film, feel tonally contrasted from the rest of the piece, and proves more of a distraction than anything else. Leung’s character becomes a cipher with the truth of his personality presence entirely unknown, as there is no “there” to his character. It becomes hard to invest in the struggle and dynamic between the mother and her son’s lover if the person they’re fighting about and trying to heal over is but the faintest impression.

None of this makes Lilting a bad movie, on the contrary it’s so close to greatness that these fumbles strangely make you root for it more, as everything else works like gangbusters. Whishaw and the company of actors sell the improbability of some of the script with panache, and Cheng Pei Pei matches him with a combination of stubbornness and an ache that rests in her soul from a hard life in a foreign land. In their all too brief scenes together, Whishaw and Leung create a believably lived in romance, full of jokes, supportive glances, and exasperated fights.

The glacial pace actually doesn’t bother me, as I found it to be appropriate to the material. Processing grief and finding a new normal is not a quick process for anyone, and especially not for a mother and partner of several years. No gauche sarcasm to be found here, just an appealing heart-on-sleeve openness that is quite fetching in its vulnerability and sincerity, two qualities that are sorely lacking in modern cinematic language. Watching Whishaw in just about anything is worth the price of admission alone, and Lilting is best when it points the camera at him and just lingers as quicksilver thoughts flash across his fine features and large eyes.