It's a Vietnamese refugee family story set in Saigon, Vietnam, and Granby, Quebec, ending in 1979. Minh (Jean Bui) and Nguyen (Chantal Thuy) are an educated, upper-middle-class Vietnamese family. Minh is a senior civil servant and Nguyen helps run a business her mother owned. They decide to flee at the war's end with their three children, Tinh (Chloé Djandji), Quôc (Olivier Dinh) and Duc (Xavier Nguyen). Their beloved siblings and cousins decide to remain in Vietnam.

The family flies to Montreal in winter 1979. Their host and sponsoring family includes Normand Girard (Patrice Robitaille), his wife, Lisette (Karine Vanasse), and their extroverted and talkative daughter, Johanne (Mali Corbeil-Gauvreau), who is near Tinh's age.

From Tinh's perspective, the film follows the struggles of employment and the relationships of the families, especially Tinh and Johanne, all mixed with flashbacks to their escape from Vietnam and time in a refugee camp. Tinh misses her cousin and is sometimes triggered by events in Canada. At the same time, she learns from grandfatherly refugees with their own stories and encouragement to look ahead.

"Ru" is emotionally engaging and convincingly represents a "good" refugee experience. The film presents no real dark sides in the Canadian context, which is its greatest limitation. The story is well told and paced, but never really ends. I don't think Tinh smiles once in the movie. Nonetheless, "Ru's" strength is its unique perspective.

Probably this book Ru is the most popular novel about Vietnamese refugees written by a Vietnamese boat person, considering the fact that it has been published in 17 countries.

I haven't read the book but I did watch the movie. There are some points that I would like to point out:

• About the scene "inside the escape boat". It seems like a big metal ship with very roomy space. In reality, in all the escape big ships and wooden boats, all refugees were packed like sardines. You can verify this fact by googling all photos about Vietnamese boat people.

• The whole story happened in a cold, snowy Montreal. Probably the author wanted it this way, as it told us the harsh weather the refugees had to cope with in the country of resettlement. But it doesn't do justice to Montreal though. Montreal not only has cold. Snowy winter but also warm, nice, flowery summer. So the new country was portrayed one-sidedly.

The parents are pragmatic, the young sons are rambunctious, but the tween daughter can't shake or hide the pain and sadness of the family's violent and treacherous escape from Viet Nam. This is the distinctive core of RU's telling of a story that's been told before - about (and by) a refugee family struggling with their trauma while simultaneously needing to adapt to a new life. At this film's heart is Tinh, sensitively portrayed by the young actress, Chloé Djandji, in her first role. The director's choice to cut back and forth between past and present becomes more and more effective as the family settles in to their new life in Québec and Tinh begins to confront, rather than suppress, her trauma. Beautifully shot.