Bangkok Traffic (Love) Story

Adisorn Trisirikasem's 2009 Thai film follows thirty-year-old Mei Li's search for real love. Feeling alone after all her friends marry, she meets an engineer working on the BTS metro, decides he is the right man and makes her move. The obstacles keep coming and she never gives up. What made the film so popular in Thailand is how it places the daily life of Bangkok, and the metro system in particular, inside the story; the city is not scenery but the condition of the relationship. Sirin Horwang's performance carries the social pressure around being single at thirty without making it ridiculous. The narrative weakness is that the woman's success is finally tied again to a relationship. Who it's for: viewers who like Thai romantic comedy and films built on city life. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a story that leaves the genre template, or troubled by the pressure to marry sitting at the centre.