Papa (2024)

This is a tough film to watch, but it’s worth it. “Papa” (Ching-wan Lau) runs a bustling café and we first meet him looking forlornly at his apartment from the street outside. It transpires that there has been a double-murder and that his wife and daughter have been stabbed to death by their son. The young lad has openly admitted the crime and is soon committed for psychiatric care as schizophrenia is suspected. Over the next two hours we learn a bit about the family dynamic and each character has their moment in the sun to explain just who they are and how they fit into this tight and typically loving and bickering family unit. Of course, there are signs that “Ming” (Dylan So) has some sort of mental illness, but like any family they are confident that with love and care they can manage this, and for the most part the teenager appears to thrive with his mum (Kam Yin) and lively sister “Yan” (Lainey Hung). What comes across strongly here are the older man’s senses of grief and disbelief, yes - but also of his guilt at not being there to stop the attack, or even to succumb to it; and there is also a palpable sense of forgiveness emanating from a man who ought to hate his son deeply but who doesn’t. As we delve deeper into the story, it’s left up to us to form our opinions about what may or not have been warning signs or triggers as well as appreciating just how difficult it was for this couple running a 24/7 business that left them emotionally drained and sleep deprived at the best of times. It’s a film about coping, prioritising and doing the best possible and just like everyone else, hoping that we can be left to cruise along undisturbed by trauma - large or small. It’s not a doom-laden exercise, there is a fair degree of light-heartedness and a great deal of eating (well it’s more like shovelling, really) has there’s even a mother-in-law joke! Now there are some quirks in this production that do occasionally make you think that the director wasn’t paying enough attention and as with anything trying to weave timelines and characters together, the continuity is not the best - but if you take a wide vision view of just how a tightly-knit family deals with life, love, disaster and possibly forgiveness then this is a poignant film to watch with solid efforts from both Ching-wan Lau and from a less prominent, but still effective, Dylan So.