HALF LIFE

(USA – 2007 – 106 min.)

Written and Directed by Jennifer Phang

Review By Michael Ricciardi

Brilliant sunsets, predatory jellyfish, fizzling, mal-functioning traffic lights, soaring Cessna airplanes---these are the visual (and auditory) threads that entangle themselves through the lives of a “broken” Asian American family and their neighbors in a rather hot Southern California valley neighborhood. Set against a mass media fueled backdrop of climate-change-induced disasters and other seemingly momentous changes (both local and global), Half Life offers us a Rorschach-like puzzle. We are left to infer for ourselves (based upon various clues, subtle and gross) what is going on in the world (not just climate change, but other, deeper forces seem to be at work) and in the lives of the protagonists (principally: a mother, her boyfriend, her teen daughter, and young son). Questions, small and large, pop up with regularity (like the meaning of the young boy’s special powers, or the nature of the teen-aged daughter’s relationship with the mother’s boyfriend, or what really happened to their missing father). Captivating animation sequences—moments of imaginative escape for the young boy or the re-telling of the mother’s apocalyptic dream—erratically punctuate the story, while also providing an additional visual texture to the film.

Feeling more at times like a pastiche and/or tone poem than a complete/coherent narrative (for little here is resolved or revealed; we only sense some imminent change, and that life must continue), writer/director Jennifer Phang relies on select, day-in-the-life (or moment-in-the-life) sketches to communicate the dysfunctional and transformational nature of this family—at the core of which is a barely suppressed sense of profound loss. Regarding this, we are offered only a few moments (in flashback) to surmise the truth; we hear (but never quite see) the father (an airplane pilot) reading a particular passage from Jonathan Livingston Seagull to his children…it is his mostly unspoken memory-presence that drifts through the film like a ghost.

The film’s title, Half Life is also part of its mystery. We learn eventually that it refers, somewhat ambiguously, to a dramatic change in the solar dynamo, but in retrospect, I came to see this also as an oblique reference to the state of the family itself, struggling to go forward, despite its broken reality. But that too is a guess—so much of this film is about what you do not see, or hear, or fully understand.

While I found the boyfriend’s (Ben Redgrave) acting to be uneven (some of his lines falling completely flat), and a few quick scenes near the start too “directed” and unnecessary (perhaps inserted to “fill out” the mother’s background), and also some early-on abrupt edits…overall, the film is uniquely engaging and visually tantalizing. It seems to invent its own pacing and visual structuring as it goes. This could be a dangerous gamble, but in this case in feels just right, or just so. The two lead female performers (Julia Nickson as the mother, and Sanoe Lake as the daughter) work well and believably in their roles (the daughter’s role calls for more range, and is a standout), while the young boy (played by Alexander Agate) –who spends most of the film looking down—shows remarkable introspection and even a strange, inchoate charisma.

Half Life has its quirks and a few minor flaws (this is the first feature effort by Phang), to be sure, but it is a sublime, poetic work that epitomizes the true appeal and strength of independent film, and one that you’ll want to watch more than once. Writer/director Phang is a talented and visionary filmmaker to watch for in the future.