REVIEW: ‘Monsoon,’ starring Henry Golding and Parker Sawyers
Photo: Henry Golding stars in Monsoon. Photo courtesy of Strand Releasing / Provided by Film Forum official site.
Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) offers a tender, thoughtful performance as Kit, a Vietnamese man who has returned to the country for the first time since childhood, in the new movie Monsoon, which is currently streaming courtesy of New York City’s Film Forum. While visiting Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, he meets with family members and makes new friends, including American fashion designer Lewis (Parker Sawyers). The two start talking, go out on a few dates and try to figure out each other’s respective journeys.
Monsoon, from write-director Hong Khaou, is understated and simplistic in its presentation of Kit’s journey. Many scenes feature few words, with the audience left with the visuals of Kit as he makes his way throughout the neighborhoods of these two iconic cities. He is a quasi-tourist, having not been in Vietnam in decades, but he also feels a cultural and familial pull to some of the sights and people he encounters. At one point, he travels to Hanoi to see where his parents were born and to consider spreading their ashes.
For some, this understated atmosphere might feel like the drama fails to register, but there are satisfying wonders to be found in these cinematic tableaux. For starters, Khaou is an expert lenser of Kit’s travels and also his home life in a rented apartment. There’s one simple scene that finds the camera capturing Kit taking a deep breath and collapsing slowly onto a couch. The camera descends as he descends, and then entering the foreground is the box holding his parents’ ashes, a physical manifestation of what has been weighing on his mind.
Kit’s relationship with Lewis is sweet and uncomplicated. Kit is there for a limited time, and it would appear the same can be said about Lewis, who is checking in on the production for his clothing line (called “Curve” because, as he says, he’s not straight). The two meet up thanks to a dating app, have a fling, meet up again, drink some beers, have another fling and start to get comfortable with each other. Both the characters and the audience don’t think much of the relationship — love at first date, this is not — but Lewis comes into Kit’s life at the perfect moment, grounding him and allowing revealing conversations to fly. Kit unburdens himself around Lewis, and he clearly needs that because he has a sense of guilt when taking in all that Vietnam has to offer. He’s presumably living a comfortable life in the United Kingdom, yet his cousins scrape by in Ho Chi Minh City. He walks the streets of these two cities as a foreigner, but he also acknowledges his own past, yearning for a deep connection to the place of his birth.
Beyond Kit and Lewis, there are only a few other characters in Monsoon. The entire film runs fewer than 90 minutes; however, there is a beautiful sequence involving Linh (Molly Harris), a person Kit meets on an art tour. They have lunch together and take in a session of making lotus tea, a physical activity that seems to calm Kit and connect him back to his parents and their culture.
Monsoon can be enjoyed on two levels. As a romantic drama depicting two gay men trying to find their footing in life, it’s an effective hour and a half, but for those who are wiling to follow Khaou a little further into the realm of introspection, Kit and Lewis have a lot more to say about culture, family, guilt and how the past informs the present.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Monsoon (2020). Written and directed by Hong Khaou. Starring Henry Golding, Parker Sawyers, Molly Harris and David Tran. Strand Releasing. Running time: 85 minutes. Rating: 
Currently available to stream from New York City’s Film Forum. Click here for more information.
