Written and directed by Sen-I Yu, three sets of Taiwanese transplants connect and inspire one another in New York City: a lonely Mandarin-English interpreter, two young hip-hop dance enthusiasts, and a middle-aged couple. Starring: Vivian Sung, Keung To, Chun-Yao Yao (Jack Yao), Mandy Wei, Jessica Lee, Logan Cheng, Ming Wu and Yu Lu.
Interconnected stories can be a wonderful thing to see how experiences can so wildly vary within the same places at the same time, but My Heavenly City doesn’t really weave its stories together. Granted, they do exist within the same city and time frame but they have little to do with one another and only connect within the briefest of moments. It’s a shame really as each individual story could make for a full feature on its own but by splitting them up, they don’t really get enough time to develop.
Particularly, the initial story of the young translator played by Vivian Sung, which can be surprisingly harsh and is a great representation of loneliness and life’s hardships but also of compassion. Then the film’s last introduced couple with a mentally ill son, is a story that deals with a lot of complex emotions and could have used more time to dig into them. Putting that together with another story of love-struck young people works but without that stronger connection, having their daily lives actually intersect with one another, there’s a feel of something missing. Having to only make brief trips into each of their lives.
It’s even more of a shame given how excellent the performances are from the entire ensemble. There’s a great deal of sensitivity and sadness to their portrayals, they each face difficult decisions and challenges and the whole cast deal with that well. Again, Vivian Sung stands out as it’s a compelling story and she faces so many other people’s pain as well as her own. Chun-Yao Yao is another standout, his role is filled with conflict, confusion and complicated emotions.
My Heavenly City had a nice idea and it’s a solid drama but the stories aren’t woven together enough and while they are engaging, don’t feel like they’re making a particular effort to reflect the larger Taiwanese experience of New York City. There’s a great ensemble at work but the visual is ticking very familiar boxes and leaning towards the sentimental side. It had the potential to be something harder hitting, diving further into the immigrant experience but it took an easier road.
FilmCarnage.com 