Wang Xiaoshuai draws on his own experiences for this slow-burning tale of domestic discord, set in the remote southern Chinese province of Guizhou in the early 1980s. But he still struggles to draw us into teenager Gao Yuanyuan’s frustration at her father’s decision to quit their declining industrial home and return to the city he was compelled to leave during the Cultural Revolution. Her reluctance to leave her best friend and an amorous factory worker smacks more of adolescent caprice than true attachment, and this sense of contrivance undercuts the more considered insights into the consequences of socio-economic betterment.
Claustrophobic interiors and grim landscapes reinforce the aura of Sixth Generation realism, but its episodic nature and sketchy characterisation prove a drag.