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A significant number of Singaporean films deal quietly but firmly with the imperfections that simmer from under the surface of its polished society.
We remember flicks like I Not Stupid, Money No Enough and Twelve Stories for the social problems beneath the banter of comedy and Singlish: academic pressure on children, infidelity, the desperate frustration of feeling confined.
Kenneth Bi’s Rice Rhapsody openly explores the topic of homosexuality in Singapore. A refreshing change from movies about “what it means to be gay,” Rice Rhapsody broaches the subject of gayness through the eyes of a mother who has to come to terms with her sons being gay.
As noble as this may sound, the movie actually ends up giving a remarkably tacky portrayal of gay men and their relationships.
As the film opens, Jen (Sylvia Chang) tells us about the success of her chicken rice restaurant, which she had built up from scratch after her husband left the family. She is very Chinese in the way she speaks and gestures, and it is clear she is quite traditional.
We are introduced to her two older sons, Daniel (Alvin Chiang) and Harry (Craig Toh), who have moved out and live openly gay lives. Her hopes for “having a normal family and grandchildren” lie with her youngest son Leo (Tan Lepham). But he too may be gay.
Jen is so desperate that Leo be “normal” that she visits religious psychics to find out. One of them tells her that “young plant that grows sideways can be reshaped this way or that way.” With this in mind, Jen starts scheming to “realign” Leo by inviting a French exchange student, Sabine (Melanie Laurent), to stay with her and Leo.
There ensues a “much-ado-about-nothing” spirit in Jen’s haphazard attempts to match-make the two. The situation is made more awkward by the hippie-like Sabine who seems to have no romantic chemistry at all with Leo. Laurent is delightful in her role as a carefree, dreamy philosophy student. She can be silly – juggling oranges, talking to herself in French, meditating on the balcony – but also deeply caring for Jen, using strange methods to help the older woman along.
Jen also has the support of an adoring friend, Kim Chui (Martin Yan), who follows her about trying to get her to fall in love with him. Yan (of Yan Can Cook fame) is lovable and bumbling in his role, and lends a colourful twist to the culinary angle of the movie. This is perhaps the only relationship that is well developed. The comic contrast between Kim Chui’s affection and Jen’s stubbornness is played out nicely as the two fall neatly into each other’s rhythms.
Disappointingly, what is supposed to be the central theme (a mother coming to terms with her children’s homosexuality) is quite flippantly dealt with. Rice Rhapsody is guilty of stereotyping gay men: Daniel is an endearing floppy-haired air steward who ends up marrying a white guy; Harry is the small ultra-camp boy who flounces about in hot pants and dates rich men, and his friends are a gaggle of squealing, fanning queens in lurid outfits.
It is never quite clear if this profiling is deliberate, as a way of depicting the gay community through the eyes of a parent who knows little about their lifestyle. In a scene at a party, Jen meets and dances with three screamingly camp gay men. The men are depicted as over-the-top and ridiculous but, paradoxically, it is through them that Jen realises that gays aren’t so bad after all.
While these depictions may, at face value, appear to trivialise homosexuality, it also deals realistically with the ways in which they are still regarded by much of the older, more traditional generation. If we remind ourselves that this isn’t about trumping gay rights so much as about how a mother deals with the “coming out of her children”, then we may better understand the function of stereotyping within the film.
Unfortunately, the few occasions where Rice Rhapsody does deal realistically with Jen’s struggle to reconcile with her sons’ “differences” are not fully developed. Instead, the film takes far too many unnecessary detours involving too many disparate characters, resulting in a storyline that is often convoluted and contrived.
Chang is nevertheless endearing in her role and is able to contrast the dynamics of a proud, traditional Chinese woman with the sadness of a mother who is beginning to feel very much isolated from her sons.
The same cannot be said of the three sons, who are wooden and far too self-conscious. The casual, funny banter of Singlish we look forward to in Singaporean productions is not captured in their dialogue and they just end up sounding like they are not speaking English correctly. Consequently, for a movie where personal relationships are central, Rice Rhapsody shows pitifully little chemistry between the sons and their mother.
For all its flaws though, Rice Rhapsody must be applauded for its attempt to explore the issues of homsexuality within family and between generations.
That it attempts to look at the very real struggle and emotions experienced within both a gay community and the people closest to them is heartening.
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