Little Big Women

Lin Shoying's husband left her and their three daughters forty years ago. She built her restaurant, raised the children, and never mentioned him again. On her seventieth birthday, news arrives that he has died. As the funeral is arranged, two things come out: he had been living with another woman for years, and the daughters had gone on seeing him in secret. Joseph Hsu's film came out of his own family. The narrative is about how grief cannot be shared: each of them responds to the same man's death by mourning something different. Karaoke, the restaurant kitchen and the funeral rite are the film's three fixed locations. Chen Shu-fang plays the grandmother and won Best Leading Actress at the 57th Golden Horse Awards, the most senior actress to have taken it. The film was Taiwan's highest-grossing local production of 2020 and went up worldwide on Netflix on 5 February. Who it's for: Viewers who like family drama, multi-generational narrative, and Taiwanese cinema. Who it's not for: The emotional pitch is high and the ending plays openly for effect. There are many characters and some do not get developed.