🔗 Share this article

Rarely do elements in any society carry as much ridiculousness and power as its superstitions. Left-Handed Girl introduces us to I-Jing, a sweet five-year-old who has recently relocated back to Taipei with her mother and older sister. She gets literal firsthand experience when her grandfather admonishes her for using her left hand for everything – it’s unnatural, he insists; it’s the devil at work, he claims.

As I-Jing gazes upon her limb with worry, a new connection forms between her and her so-called sinister hand while she navigates city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, debut solo director and screenwriter Shih-Ching Tsou, together with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, evokes the dynamic vibe and sensory experience of Taipei. Bright red Chinese characters overtake the glass windows of a pawn shop; the cheerful tune of garbage trucks fills the air; the fluid exchange of Mandarin and Taiwanese between generations; lush trees against grimy buildings that nearly make you smell the specific essence of a bustling, humid city. It’s not so much a love letter from a fan as it is a dedication to a place deeply familiar. Tsou pairs the kaleidoscopic fragments of the city with the complexities of flawed individuals – tenderly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and presenting a triumph of a film.

Family Relationships and Inner Conflicts

The drama, Taiwan’s entry for best foreign language film at the Oscars, starts with I-Jing, her older sister, and her mom in a rebuild stage. Pensive mom Shu-Fen has set up a night market noodles stand, and the unpredictable I-Ann has left high school and works at a betel nut stall, where she’s sleeping with her boss. I-Jing, played by the very charming Nina Ye, starts a new school and, with the wonder only a child can have, tests out the potential of this newly anointed devil hand.

As she starts pocketing trinkets at the night market with the forbidden hand, distinguishing a good hand that does what’s required and the other that pursues what the heart desires, Tsou gracefully reflects each character’s own internal conflicts. Here, the film delineates the intricacies between what a person feels obligated to and what she truly wants: Shu-Fen can’t untangle herself from her former husband’s debts; I-Ann feels relegated to the role her mom wants her to play as she watches her peers move forward; I-Jing is told to be seen and not heard.

Cinematic Craft and Emotional Depth

Tsou, along with Baker as editor and Ko-Chin Chen and Tzu-Hao Kao as cinematographers, skillfully places us onto each family member’s separate planets, with many shots capturing the lively and charming rhythms of daily Taipei life. We’re eye-level with I-Jing as she makes her first theft, the adrenaline rushing with a camera unsteady and beat staccato. The camera sweeps above as I-Ann rides her scooter at night, city lights glistening in the heat, bringing an expansive feeling of freedom with a pain that’s hers alone to feel.

A feeling of responsibility is deftly woven into each conundrum, as well as the isolation that comes with it – it’s at once personal and heartbreaking to see how duty is often a lonely journey. We see it when I-Jing tries in earnest to draw with her right hand, when I-Ann rests in bed after being scorned at an ex-classmate’s motel party. Meanwhile, Shu-Fen struggles to make rent, her own mom irritated she needs help yet again. “A married daughter’s like water that’s poured out,” says the grandma; a son would have still been her responsibility.

Moments of Light and Character Portrayals

There are also touches of humor and playfulness, especially with the grandma’s bouts of anger, time with a meerkat that becomes I-Jing’s pet, and I-Jing’s general delight with the world. Ye, who is a left-hander in real life, perfectly balances of an young girl absorbing the economic pressures and unfamiliar forces – Shu-Fen’s ex, the grandma’s antics, I-Ann and Shu-Fen’s bickering – that surround her. Ma’s I-Ann, too, is a considered portrait of an sharp teenager dealing with grief, making it feel like an inescapable but unaffordable emotion in an environment where everyone’s just trying to survive.

Final Acts and Central Ideas

By the soap opera-like second-to-last dinner scene, the clan has nurtured big secrets that lead to the ultimate Taiwanese diu lian (losing of face): getting humiliated in front of an audience. And the disclosures are good – by that point, it’s like discovering a juicy, painful secret about a dear friend. Tsou and Baker’s script keenly examines what it really means to be shamed: which disgraces are honorable, which are self-serving, and what should be passed from one generation to the next?

Some of these bombs are left unresolved after the big confrontation, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you dissatisfied – but perhaps also understanding that blowing it all up doesn’t mean closure or a tidy adage immediately follows, or that there will be a devil’s hand to blame. Instead, perhaps the city just wakes up to another day, and, a little lighter (having lost a little face), so do you.

• Availability: Left-Handed Girl is available in certain theaters on November 14 and on digital services from November 28.