I am not Vietnamese, and was curious to see what life there is like. I found this film to be warm, engaging, and a window into a culture I know little about other than its food and history. The actors were all excellent, especially the two male leads and the grandma. Totally worth your time. Nice film about the meaning of family and acceptance.
Goodbye Mother
2019 [VIETNAMESE]
Comedy / Drama / Romance
Plot summary
Văn comes back to Saigon from the US with his boyfriend Ian to visit his mother. Being the male heir of the family, everyone expects him to take a wife soon. And to top it all, his grandmother, who has Alzheimer, mistakes Ian for her grandson.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
October 25, 2022 at 11:01 PM
Director
Top cast
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Wonderful and sweet film
Good acting, very Vietnamese perspective
As a gay Dutch guy who's been living in different parts of Vietnam for 7 years I found this film interesting to watch. It's great that Vietnamese LGBT people are increasingly using film to show the world the beauty of same-sex relationships in their culture. This is greatly needed in a country where the government has very recently been described by HRW as 'not participating in the protection or improvement of LGBT rights'.
The two main actors are stealing the show by putting on a very believable chemistry that is pertained throughout the movie. The rest of the cast all seem a bit clumsy in their roles.
Vietnamese people (still) like to believe in luck to make important life decisions for them rather than push for self-determination. The way that Van 'comes out' is exemplary for that belief. He's being led to coming out by the circumstances instead of taking control and telling his family in an act of love for himself. That's a missed opportunity from my Western standpoint, and also shows the weak position of LGBT in a culture that usually chooses the wishes of the powerful and/or community over the emotions and heartfelt wishes of the individual. That said, the fact that at the end of the movie their relationship is open and accepted is a great thing and left me feeling warm and happy.
For Westerners I recommend watching this film if you have experience with or in Vietnam, or for learning more about the position of LGBT people in this culture. For others the cultural peculiarities may be a bit too boring or hard to understand.
Grandmother knows more than people think she does
The Vietnamese film Thua Me Con Di (2019) was shown in the U.S. with the title Goodbye Mother. It was directed by Trinh Dinh Le Minh.
It's a coming-out film about two Vietnamese men. One of them, Van, is the oldest grandson. He has returned from the U.S. for an important memorial service for his grandfather. (Van is portrayed by Lanh Thanh.) His partner, also Vietnamese-American, is Ian (Vo Dien Gia Huy Vo).
Van is slow in coming out to his family, but his grandmother (Nsut Le Thien) understands that the two men are gay. The men look enough alike to confuse grandmother, and she bonds to Ian, not Van. But, she knows what's going on.
This movie would have worked well as I've reviewed it above. However, director Trinh Dinh Le Minh has added a subplot full of family melodrama. I haven't seen enough films from Vietnam to know if this drama is expected of any movie, even a relatively light comedy. However, the subplot skews the story away from its basic plot--coming out in a traditional family.
We saw this film as part of Rochester's important ImageOut LGBTQ Film Festival. (Virtual this year.) It has a strong IMDb rating of 7.5. I thought it was even better than that, and rated it 8.