Hal Kitchen
And so we’re back for another year of the London Film Festival bringing together some of the most exciting releases of the coming year, including the latest films of Francois Ozon, Sean Baker, Luca Guadagnino, Pedro Almodovar, Jacques Audaird, Pablo Larrain and Steve McQueen. However, before we get to some of those releases already destined for the spotlight, we should take a moment to appreciate and acknowledge some of those films in need of the kind of word-of-mouth publicity boosts that festivals like these are largely for, and one film already marked out as deserving of such a swell is All Shall Be Well, a measured and understated but extremely poignant and affecting portrait of grief and injustice.
Directed by Ray Yeung (Twilight’s Kiss, Front Cover) All Shall Be Well follows the same skeletal trappings as Sebastian Leilo’s Oscar-winner A Fantastic Woman, in following a queer widow after her partner of many years unexpectedly passes away, leaving her to fight for her rights in a society that doesn’t recognise the legitimacy of their relationship. But where A Fantastic Woman focused more on its heroine’s defiance and the dehumanizing persecution she suffers, All Shall Be Well is an altogether more low-key, nuanced and sensitive experience, and one in which its heroine’s grief is of much more central importance. Here, we see their relationship, the joy they brought to one another and the confusion and devastation of its absence.
Angie (Patra Au Ga-Man) and Pat (Maggie Li Lin-Lin) have lived together for over 30 years and though Angie is quite distant from her parents who have never acknowledged her romance with Pat, their lovely downtown apartment is the hub around which Pat’s extended family—brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew and their respective families—congregates. They love Pat and Angie, who are well-to-do and generous with their money, and don’t seem to care one bit that their aunt’s significant other is a woman. However, when Pat unexpectedly dies and her brother is decreed next of kin, Angie slowly realizes how vulnerable her position is, and that she’s going to have to fight for her rights as a widow.
Queer couples across the world have had to fight for many things, including rights of inheritance, but All Shall Be Well is not so much a social film about a hexaganarian being radicalized to fight for her rights, but more about the ways that pressures of tradition and protocol sabotage the grief of non-traditional couples. She’s “not family”, despite being the single person who knew Pat best and who is grieving most deeply, and charitable offers to “take care of all the arrangements” become a wedge with which to exclude her. Angie is not a forceful person at the best of times and she’s grieving for her rock. Socially and financially Pat left her in a precarious situation by not making a will, especially when the rest of her family relied on her so much when she was alive.
That’s part of what makes All Shall Be Well so good, it would’ve been easy to have made Pat’s family greedy homophobes just waiting for a chance to kick Angie to the curb the second her back was turned. But the truth is they are all struggling, working low-paying jobs, living shoulder to shoulder in cramped apartments and have always envied Pat and Angie’s good fortune. Of course our sympathies are always with Angie, she’s unquestionably the victim here, but the parallel theme of class plays a pivotal role as well. It is a comparatively huge apartment she’s been left, she is just one person and Pat’s niece and nephew do each have children they’re raising in hardly suitable conditions. But the apartment is definitely hers, and with no other means to grieve, she has no reason to give up the home she and Pat made together to people who would steal it from under her.
Ray Yeung nails the emotional complexity of the scenario. The film employs no musical score and the camerawork is simple, yet beautiful, it’s a lovely looking film that demonstrates the importance of lighting and color even in a mundane, realistic setting. And the performances are exceptional all around with each member of the cast doing a sterling job articulating their internal conflict. Of course the standout is Ga-Man who gives an indescribably tender and vulnerable portrait of grief and frustration as Angie in what is likely to contend for one of the festival’s best performances. Superb too though are the rest of the cast including Pat’s family who bring doubt, guilt and hesitancy to their roles, and Angie and Pat’s chosen family of fellow lesbians who rally around to support their beleaguered friend in her grief. It’s a wonderfully humane and gentle film that explores the social and legal issues threatening its characters but remains above all a film about love and the pain that loss brings with it.
