(With Sundance rapidly wrapping up and an intimidating backlog of films to write about, I’ll be publishing a number of brief capsule reviews over the next few days. If a specific title piques your interest and you’d like to see a more substantial review, let me know in the comments.)
Tze Chun’s micro-budget Sundance Spectrum entry Children of Invention sneaks up on you. Inspired by the filmmaker’s own childhood experiences, the film follows Raymond (Michael Chen) and Tina (Crystal Chiu), two first generation Chinese kids growing up in Boston with Elaine (Cindy Cheung), their overworked, illegal immigrant single mom. After Elaine’s savings vanish in a vitamin sales pyramid scheme, the family loses their home and moves into a model condo unit in an unfinished building. With her estranged husband slacking on child support payments, Elaine gets involved in another pyramid scheme and is eventually arrested. Afraid that Tina and Raymond will be taken away if she tells the police she’s left two young children home alone, Elaine says nothing, and with their mom disappeared with no explanation, the kids are left to fend for themselves.
Like the somewhat narratively similar Treeless Mountain, Invention presents an adult world through the eyes of a child. But unlike that meditation on the loneliness, isolation and confusion of two very small children, Invention has a sense of adventure. Primary colors abound, not least in the film’s several dips into subtle daydream magical realism, as Tina and Raymond respond to their trials and tribulations with a kind of make-do play. As the hopelessness of the family’s economic situation becomes more and more clear and the dread mounts, it becomes equally apparent how disconnected the kids are from their reality. The result is an edge-of-your-seat family drama, pushed beyond the constraints of its micro-budget by two heartbreaking child actor performances.
Originally posted on:
SpoutBlog