Dear Tenant

Cheng Yu-chieh's 2020 Taiwanese film opens with three people in an apartment: an elderly woman, her grandson and their tenant, Mr Lin. Lin looks after both of them. When the grandmother dies, the son who has been absent for years returns and learns that the apartment has been transferred. From there the film becomes an investigation. Why Lin cared so much, how the property changed hands, how the adoption of the boy proceeded. The answer is given to the audience early: Lin was the partner of the woman's dead son, and that relationship was never formally recognised. That non-recognition is the real subject. Legally Lin is neither a spouse nor family, and everything he does is read as suspicion rather than good faith. Mo Tzu-yi's performance won best actor at the Golden Horse Awards. Who it's for: those who like Taiwanese cinema and queer family narratives. Who it's not for: viewers who do not want to approach drug use and suicide; the film contains both.