Wet Season

Looking to fill an emotional void, a Malaysian-born teacher in Singapore finds herself drawn to the attentions – and affection – of one of her students.

Staff and students alike don’t take Ling’s subject, Mandarin, seriously, and her husband continues to grow more distant after eight years of failed conceptions. On top of all this, she looks after her wheelchair-bound father-in-law, who requires her constant care. Feeling underappreciated at work and at home, Ling develops an intense closeness with a similarly neglected remedial pupil.

Anthony Chen’s follow-up to the Camera d’Or–winning Ilo Ilo (MIFF 2013) is a delicate, emotionally complex character piece filled with quiet moments of tenderness. Headlined by returning collaborator Yeo Yann Yann – crowned Best Leading Actress at the Golden Horse Awards for her performance here – Wet Season is a powerful portrait of the restraint and self-effacement expected of women, and of the ways we learn to connect and cope with age.

“Chen provides an experience that warms your heart in one scene and breaks it in the very next one. Still, even when considering its bittersweet moments … Wet Season is a warm, enveloping blanket of compassion. The sweetness is simply overwhelming.” – /Film