Jason J Hedrick
Left-Handed Girl was recently screened as part of the Snapshots programming at the 61st Chicago International Film Festival and is the solo directorial debut of Shih-Ching Tsou, whose only previous directorial work was Take-Out (2004), co-helmed with recent Best Picture winner Sean Baker. Tsou also worked as a producer on some of Baker’s best, including Tangerine (2015), The Florida Project (2017), and Red Rocket (2021). Left-Handed Girl carries much of the same street-level energy of those films, as well as Baker’s run-and-gun New York film Prince of Broadway (2008). Like those movies, Left Handed-Girl weaves its drama through the lives of people working or trapped in bustling urban marketplaces, often hanging on by a thin financial thread. Left-Handed Girl takes place mostly in the noisy and neon night markets of TaIpei, where Shu-Fen (Janel Tsai) has relocated her daughters in order to survive after the financial hardship around her husband’s illness.
Janel Tsai’s performance is the emotional anchor of Left-Handed Girl, but the film gradually re-centers itself around the character of her daughter I-Ann (Shih-Yuan Ma). The “left-handed girl” of the title refers to I-Jing, played with charm and complexity by little Nina Ye (a bit bigger Nina Ye gave a very endearing video introduction for the film at the CIFF). Young I-Jing is our entrance point into the film, as we first see her world through the kaleidoscope eyes she experiments with from the backseat on the journey to her new home. The jaunty and somewhat generic score queues us to something that feels a bit different than where the film takes us from there, but it quickly becomes clear that the strength of the film lies in the characters and the performances. The core trio of performances are effortlessly drawn and essential to what works about the film—understated and lived-in when they need to be, and able to handle the more dramatic gambits the film makes as the story progresses.
There’s a balance attempted in Left-Handed Girl that ultimately feels a bit off, but I don’t want my criticisms of the more heightened dramatic elements to sway anyone from seeing it. There’s a lot to love about the film, and a momentum and quality scene-to-scene that perfectly transports the viewer into the world of this small, struggling family. But it was the world of the film and the relationships of the characters that I attached to most, rather than the ultimate dramatic climaxes they’re destined toward. With that said, I’m sure others will have the completely inverse reaction. Without spoiling, it’s a film that builds narratively to the birthday party of Shu Fen’s mother, which then collides with I-Ann’s romantic and work drama, which is then amplified by a lot of alcohol. And, well…secrets are revealed. It’s the type of thing that might come off as total contrivance if it weren’t couched in a film with characters we’ve so fully invested in. The balance that Left-Handed Girl eventually manages is between wanting to work both as an explosive family drama and a quiet, atmospheric, observant character study told through the eyes of a child.
While the dramatic reveals of Left-Handed Girl might be a bit manufactured, the time director Shih-Ching Tsou takes with the central characters in the wake of those revelations is what ultimately elevates the film to something genuine. Because our sense of the relationships shifts in relation to the secrets revealed the film takes on a new quality—like a good poem, we begin to read forward and back at the same time, investing in them anew. The key scene in this final stretch of the film is a journey through the Taipei markets where I-Ann escorts I-Jing from shop to shop to return the small items she’s been shoplifting throughout the last half of the film. Threaded through the film is I-Jing’s internal battle because of her grandfather chastising her for being left-handed. Even though I-Jing’s family dismisses this as outdated cultural superstition, little I-Jing can’t help but internalize her grandfather’s notion of the cursed left hand, even attempting to wrap the hand to keep from using it. The time taken with I-Jing returning to each shop to return the items and apologize to the shop owners is beautifully rendered and perfectly paced through Baker’s graceful editing.
While not a perfectly balanced film tonally, the Netflix-produced Left-Handed Girl is far more artistic and engaging than many highly popular films on Netflix whose direction, editing, and overall production value strive for something only barely cinematic by comparison. Shih-Ching Tsou has a keen visual sense as a director and a way with actors that rivals Chloé Zhao. Hopefully, Baker’s collaborative efforts on the film will give Left-Handed Girl a bit more exposure than it might otherwise receive. It’s a film that’s more honest than it may seem at first glance, and it ultimately takes an uncompromised look at working class women without shying away from their struggles with work, class, and sex. Let’s hope Left-Handed Girl isn’t set adrift without fanfare on the vast ocean of Netflix streaming content and eventually receives the views and consideration it deserves.
