LAAPFF 2015: OPENING NIGHT WITH EVERYTHING BEFORE US

Ben (Aaron Yoo) and Sara (Brittany Ishibashi) in Everything Before Us.

When love is just a number

By John Esther

The 31st edition of the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (LAAPFF) kicked off last night with Everything Before Us.

The first feature film by Wong Fu Productions, co-directed and co-written by Wesley Chan and Philip Wang, along with co-writer Chris Dinh, Everything Before Us is set in a quasi-future California (USA?) where everyone has an Emotional Intelligence score.

In short, Emotional Intelligence scores are based one's ability to maintain a monogamous relationship. These scores not only affect who is available for romance, they can also effect one's ability to get into college, get into a nightclub, receive a loan or land a job.

It is an interesting premise -- which would make for a dystopian future where status, power, reproductive rights and liberties could be based on one's EI score -- but in Everything Before Us the EI score is used in the form of comedy and romance.

Ben (Aaron Yoo) is still suffering from the end of his relationship with Sara (Brittany Ishibashi). Thanks to his role in their breakup, Ben's score is too low to get the job he wants (and deserves). So, after years apart, he reaches out to Sara to help rectify the situation.

Thanks to Sara's cooperation, Ben lands the new job, which also results in a new girlfriend, Anna (Joanna Sotomura). However, there is tension in the air as Ben and Sara still pine for one another.

Meanwhie, Seth (Brandon Soo Hoo) and Haley (Victoria Park) are young Los Angelinos madly in love with one another.  When Haley gets accepted to college in San Francisco, their love is put to the test. Determined to beat the formidable odds of young lovers sticking together "forever," the two agree to register as a couple with the Department of Emotional Intelligence (deliciously portrayed like the DMV) and maintain a long distance relationship.

Despite the rude behavior of some of the film's filmmakers whipping out their phones during the screening to text and go online (dimming the phone light does not cut it), Everything Before Us proved to be a highly enjoyable, smart, very funny, well written story about young people in love. While the narratives of the leads takes a more serious tone, albeit not too serious, there is plenty of comic relief provided by the supporting characters like Anna, along with Ben's friend, Henry (Chris Reidell), Henry's wife, Sandy (Katie Savoy), Haley's dweeby colleague, Taylor (Edward Gelbinovich), and Randall (Randall Park), the DEI representative.

Moreover and more importantly, is here you have an entertaining film where Asian Americans take front and center in the mise-en-scène. Although Asian Americans only make up five percent of the U.S. population they are nearly invisible when it comes to film and television. And, with few exceptions -- John Cho, Lucy Liu, Fresh Off the Boat and the short-lived All American Girl immediately come to mind, when Asian Americans are seen in American film and television, they are often relegated to supporting roles.

This underscores the importance of LAAPFF and good films like Everything Before Us.


LAAPFF runs through April 30 in Downtown LA, Koreatown and West Hollywood. For more information: LAAPFF.



 

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AGLIFF 2014: APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR

Shirin (Desiree Akhavan) in Appropriate Behavior.

Sex (I am)

By Don Simpson

When Shirin (Desiree Akhavan) is dumped by her girlfriend, Maxine (Rebecca Henderson), she finds herself lost and confused. In her own head, Shirin may have identified herself as Maxine’s partner, but she was never able to actually “come out” as a lesbian, especially not to her socially-conservative, Iranian-American family. Whether or not Shirin’s family were ever keen enough to catch on to the fact that Maxine was more than just her roommate is totally beside the point; they ignored the obvious signs and assumed that Shirin would eventually settle down and marry a man.

Now that she is single, Shirin has the opportunity to start anew by reevaluating her sexual and cultural identities in the hopes of coming up with a definition of herself with which she feels more comfortable. 

Taking a cue from Woody Allen's Annie Hall, Desiree Akhavan’s Appropriate Behavior utilizes flashbacks as Shirin contemplates the highs and lows of her relationship with Maxine. In the present, Shirin halfheartedly flounders away with her own life, moving into an artist loft in Bushwick and starting a new job teaching an after-school filmmaking program.

Channeling the simplicity of the post-Mumblecore set (which means this film will be probably compared to Lena Dunham’s work), Akhavan presents a very realistic portrayal of a young woman struggling to balance her sexuality with her ethnicity in the “anything goes” atmosphere of Brooklyn. In Appropriate Behavior, “coming out” is not as simple as just stating your sexuality; for people of some ethnic and religious backgrounds, it can be a much more complicated statement to make. 

Then again, the whole idea of people needing to proclaim their sexuality is sort of ridiculous. (Says the straight, white male.) I sense that could be why Appropriate Behavior focuses on the comedic absurdity of Shirin’s efforts to find herself. Not only is it ridiculous that Shirin thinks that she will have an answer by the end of the film’s timeline, but it is silly that she even has to go through this whole rigamarole. While it is understandable that a lack of sexual identity could be frustrating (and scary) for a romantic partner, why does it even matter otherwise, especially to her family? (That’s a rhetorical question, by the way.)

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