Most movie aficionados would probably agree that the perfect film would feature a combination of brilliant visuals, characters an audience can care about and a plot that most of us can understand and relate to.
To no one's surprise, few, if any, movies can ever live up to that standard and be called perfect. Unfortunately, it's becoming an almost-as-rare circumstance when we get something that even features two of those three elements.
However, there are still films that succeed, despite falling short of perfection. For one, the Vietnamese/French co-production "The Vertical Ray of the Sun," which only gets one thing right on a consistent basis — its visuals. And yet, it somehow sneaks up on you.
In its best moments this drama recalls filmmaker Tony Bui's 1999 award-winner "Three Seasons," and at times its plot echoes that of Ang Lee's 1994 breakthrough film "Eat Drink Man Woman" (which also inspired this summer's indie success "Tortilla Soup").
Like the former, the film is set in modern-day Vietnam — Saigon, where three sisters have come together for a memorial feast dedicated to their deceased mother. In the process, they discover that they aren't that different from her.
Lien (Tran Nu Yen-Khe), the youngest, is unhappy and wishes her boyfriend was more like her brother and roommate (Ngo Quanq Hai). Middle sister Khanh (Le Khanh) seems to be happier, especially since discovering she's pregnant — but she's also discovered that her novelist husband (Tran Manh Cuong) may be having an affair. And infidelity is also on the mind of oldest sister Suong (Nguyen Nhu Quynh), who is having an affair with a businessman, while her emotionally numb husband (Chu Ngoc Hung) is living a double life.
The plot seems straightforward enough, but frustratingly, director/screenwriter Tran Anh Hung (1996's "Cyclo") brings up interesting story threads and then drops them — such as the tantalizing hint of their mother's secret past. Instead, he concentrates on some go-nowhere plotting (such as the semi-incestuous relationship between Lien and her brother, which is just downright creepy).
Still, as impenetrable as the film seems at times, it's also visually stunning (kudos to cinematographer Mark Lee Ping-Bin), and the performances are uniformly good (though if one cast member had to be singled out for praise, it would be the expressive Quynh).
"The Vertical Ray of the Sun" is rated PG-13 for crude sexual talk and some discreet sexual liaisons and contact. Running time: 112 minutes.
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