American Girl

Fiona Roan's 2021 Taiwanese film draws on the director's own adolescence. Fen and her sister return to Taiwan after years in America when their mother is diagnosed with breast cancer. For Fen, thirteen, this is not a homecoming but an exile: she has forgotten how to write Chinese, discipline at school is enforced by beating and she is a stranger to her classmates. At the same time the country is dealing with the SARS outbreak and the fear of quarantine seeps into the house. The film centres the conflict between mother and daughter and vindicates neither: the mother struggles with her illness and the life she lost, Fen with a life she did not choose. The telling is calm and detailed and the period is carefully built. It won best new director at the Golden Horse Awards. Who it's for: viewers who like family drama and films about migration. Who it's not for: anyone expecting an ending in reconciliation; the film keeps that measured.