Riceboy Sleeps
- 2022
- 1h 57m
IMDb RATING
7.7/10
1.8K
YOUR RATING
Set in the 90s, a Korean single mother raises her young son in the suburbs of Canada determined to provide a better life for him than the one she left behind.Set in the 90s, a Korean single mother raises her young son in the suburbs of Canada determined to provide a better life for him than the one she left behind.Set in the 90s, a Korean single mother raises her young son in the suburbs of Canada determined to provide a better life for him than the one she left behind.
- Awards
- 31 wins & 21 nominations
Choi Jong-ryol
- Grandpa
- (as Jong-ryol Choi)
Lee Yong-nyeo
- Grandma
- (as Yong-nyeo Lee)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis film is very personal to its director. The film was shot in the places where he lived as a child, and scenes in Korea were filmed in the village where the director's origins belong.
Featured review
A beautiful portrait painted with too shoddy a brush
Stumbles in the same way recent arthouse outputs like 2019's Waves have, where their emotional weight is substantially lessened in their quest for pleasing and/or unique aesthetics. At least in Shults' film, the directorial choices supported the state of the characters, like how the shifts in aspect ratio reflected the isolated or stressed state the leads found themselves in. Riceboy Sleeps has a very particular way of shooting its scenes, with the camera roaming around the place like a third party, a spectator looking in from outside -- which is exactly the issue. Too many interactions fail to pull their clearly intended punch because of the simple fact that the literal distance between the people and the camera also increases the emotional distance. Why are heartfelt moments shot from such a wide angle, so far away? Why don't we linger on Dong-hyun as he experiences a realization, but instead move on to a different corner of a classroom where some teens are messing about? To add editing to the mix, why do we cut away from confronting moments, when those are the exact kind we need to see the immediate reaction to?
It's not just the filmmaking that made this lack resonance, there's also nothing that stands out in the script. The first act is repeating every 'foreign kid in western classroom' trope we've seen countless times now. As a white kid, I'm most definitely not an authoritative figure in this matter, but I would love to see stories add to the conversation or spin it in a new direction, not just endlessly regurgitate it.
Pretty much all that follows adheres to this lack of eagerness to innovate, which is a shame, because there is a very solid emotional core that is sadly not built upon properly. The journey in Korea constitutes a relatively small slice of the whole, even though it is, by far, the most interesting section. It's where the characters get to develop. As it stands, they get a few scenes where what exactly changed is unclear apart from a few new appreciations found by Dyong-hun which apparently satisfy needs he was barely established to have. It all ends with what you'd expect, a moment of catharsis that is clearly meant to be the knockout, the moment to drive you to tears, but it felt utterly empty to me.
Luckily, the visuals do save it from the damage they themselves did -- the whole thing does look neat and has some excellent long takes that really draw you into the conversation -- but a lot of it is carried by sheer acting power, which should never be the case. A performance can be as mighty as can be, but if I feel no connection, watching it is not much different than seeing Daniel Day-Lewis yell at the top of his lungs in a TikTok "best acting ever" compilation.
It's not just the filmmaking that made this lack resonance, there's also nothing that stands out in the script. The first act is repeating every 'foreign kid in western classroom' trope we've seen countless times now. As a white kid, I'm most definitely not an authoritative figure in this matter, but I would love to see stories add to the conversation or spin it in a new direction, not just endlessly regurgitate it.
Pretty much all that follows adheres to this lack of eagerness to innovate, which is a shame, because there is a very solid emotional core that is sadly not built upon properly. The journey in Korea constitutes a relatively small slice of the whole, even though it is, by far, the most interesting section. It's where the characters get to develop. As it stands, they get a few scenes where what exactly changed is unclear apart from a few new appreciations found by Dyong-hun which apparently satisfy needs he was barely established to have. It all ends with what you'd expect, a moment of catharsis that is clearly meant to be the knockout, the moment to drive you to tears, but it felt utterly empty to me.
Luckily, the visuals do save it from the damage they themselves did -- the whole thing does look neat and has some excellent long takes that really draw you into the conversation -- but a lot of it is carried by sheer acting power, which should never be the case. A performance can be as mighty as can be, but if I feel no connection, watching it is not much different than seeing Daniel Day-Lewis yell at the top of his lungs in a TikTok "best acting ever" compilation.
helpful•26
- DeanAmythe
- Nov 22, 2023
- How long is Riceboy Sleeps?Powered by Alexa
Details
Box office
- Gross worldwide
- $444,230
- Runtime1 hour 57 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
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