I was excited to find Lilting as a new addition on Netflix Canada last week, and this little indie British film was a great find.
I had heard of Lilting last year when it came out, largely because it stars Ben Whishaw, the out actor who has a supporting role as Q in the Daniel Craig James Bond movies.
This is a cross-cultural bilingual drama about love and loss and family and coming out and homophobia across generations and cultures.
In Lilting, Whishaw is Richard, a young gay man in London whose long-time boyfriend Kai dies suddenly. Kai, who was Chinese, had never introduced Richard to his family, who he had never really come out to. Overwhelmed by loneliness and grief, Richard reaches out to Kai's mother Junn who speaks no English and did not know or at least did not acknowledge that her son was gay.
Richard hires a translator and bulldozes his way into Junn's life. Their respective griefs and slowly negotiating some kind of rapport are touching and heartbreaking.
While not always really plausible -- such as when Richard wants Junn to move in with him --this is a simple quiet elegant movie, always touching and sometimes witty and even sexy.
This flick more than works due to Whishaw's tender and powerful performance as a man hit so hard by grief he becomes angry and fragile... look for Lilting.
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