Odelecol
Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.
Frances Chung
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
Logan
By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.
Chad Shiira
Narrative pyrotechnics is not the exclusive domain of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman("Being John Malkovich", "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"); it just seems that way. Nobody in Hollywood, off-Hollywood, or around the world, pulls off meta- with more lunacy, heart, and panache than the erudite iconoclast who forced the writers' branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to nominate his doppleganger, an identical twin brother named Donald, for Best Adapted Screenplay, 2002's "Adaptation", a film that "Be With Me" can be favorably compared with. But rather that skewer the blockbuster mentality of contemporary Hollywood movies, in which Kaufman created an alter-ego to purposely sabotage his winsome love story about real-life writer Susan Orlean(played by Meryl Streep) and an orchid thief with inappropriately formulaic screen writing, this gentle film from Singapore goes after something even more elevated. "Be With Me" attempts to be the missing link that sutures the documentary with the filmic tradition of neorealism.An old man grieves over the recent death of his wife; a morbidly obese security guard swoons over an oblivious, and unattainable woman; a teenage lesbian is forsaken by a bi-curious vamp who jilts her for a boy; three linked stories that are interrupted well into "Be With Me" by a seemingly incongruous fourth one, an adaptation of a blind and deaf woman's memoir that plays like non-fiction. Her name is Theresa Chan, who like Orlean(author of "The Orchid Thief"), are installed in a narrative that tells the story of the forthcoming book's creation. While "Adaptation" may seem like the bolder film, "Be With Me" goes ones step further than the Spike Jonze-directed mind bender by having Chan play herself. With very little staging, the documentary within the narrative film(Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien used this technique in 1993's "Xi meng ren sheng") records the startling competency of this severely disabled woman who can cook her own meals and teach disabled children like herself to cope, to live. With modest daring, the documentary doesn't exist in a vacuum. Extracts from Chan's memoir on the screen like subtitles, as if silence itself was a foreign language. By not providing a voice-over, the film respects the interior language of the hearing impaired. Chan's subtitles mirror the camera's focus on the text-messaging that substitutes for spoken dialogue between "dumbangel 67" and "sympgirl". The correlation being: technology turns us into virtual handicaps. The two girls can't see or hear each other when they text message or chat online.The man who accompanies Theresa to the market and bring her meals is also the widower's son. After his father shut down the modest grocery store he ran with his late wife, the old man exiled himself into a desensitized world of his own making. The black covering that shrouds the storefront gate looks like a metaphor for his "blindness". He lives with the ghost of his wife, a woman he can't see or hear. To lift his handicap, the son gives the father a Chinese translation of Chan's memoirs. In "Being John Malkovich". Craig Schwartz(John Cusack) discovers a portal that allows people to hack into another man's consciousness. Although there's no on-screen portal in "Be With Me", a similarly divine gateway is suggested by the son's ability to maneuver between both, the fictional and non-fictional diegeses of the film. Neo-realism, the Italian tradition of using real people in real locations, is given a self-reflexivity when the son visits his father, and then the lesbian, who is hospitalized after the security guard averts her attempt at suicide by sheer happenstance. The son instigates an alchemy wherever he goes. When the father reads Theresa's autobiography, the real words of the living and breathing turns this cipher into a real man. A ghost, a fictive story element that's anathemic to neorealism, no longer has a place in the spatial reality of the reconstituted father, transformed by his intertextual son and the text he carries from the real world. The father's corporeality is finalized when he boards the bus to deliver Theresa's food he prepared for her in person."Be With Me", far from being simply an "art" film, is a heart film. It's both metaphysical and emotional. Brilliant!
josephchiang-1
I've watched all of Eric Khoo's films and I think this is one of his best. I like the way the stories are told, except that I think the 3 stories are somewhat 'forced' to connect with one another, especially the part where Jackie jumped and killed the fat guy instead. I can't help but keep feeling that is the way out for the writer to make the stories connect, which is not really necessary. But then again, I'm just being critical because it's an Eric Khoo's movie.Apart from that, it's a nice effort!Go get the DVD if you can, and just enjoy the film.7 out of 10.
Deny Hermawan
This Singaporean movie consist of 3 different stories, but there's a moment when the stories be connected (4 example like Love Actually). The ultimate story is "Meant To Be", a--narrative biographical--story about Theresa Chan, a single almost old lady who is deaf and blind. She conditionally made relation with an old cooker-man who is miserable since the death of her wive. The second, "Finding Love" is about a fat security guard who adore an elegant woman and try to get her. "So in Love", the 3rd one is about love story between 2 girls (lesbian), Jackie and Sam. The idea of the stories are so realistic and touching.I'm an Asian too, and have to admit that this is one of the greatest modern Singapore movie. This movie is lack of luxurious miser en scene or montage, contrary, it's so smooth and soft with it's minimum dialog between the characters and melancholic original score, and sentimental cinematography, make this movie so sacred and live.
jaylhm
This movie is about 3 stories put together revolving around 3 separate individuals. One of the worst movie that is available and even better if it is not available.The Good : 2 pretty lesbians actress 1 true and touching story about Theresa ChanThe Bad :The main story that revolves around the blind and dear woman Theresa Chan does not need to be told in a movie format and more appropriate in a documentary format. No linkage between the 3 story lines. Minimum DIALOGUE in the film, substituted by SMSs and CHAT programs on PC. No cultural insight by the movie and it makes you forget even before you step out of the cinema.
