Name: A Picture of You (2013)
IMDb: link to A Picture of You page
Genres: Drama Country of origin: USA.
Cast: Jo Mei as Jen, Andrew Pang as Kyle, Teyonah Parris as Mika, Lucas Dixon as Doug, Jodi Long as Judy (mother of Jen and Kyle).
Written and directed by: J. P. Chan. Story by: Jo Mei and J. P. Chan.
The initial tableaux:
Brother Kyle and sister Jen travel from New York City to clean up details in rural Pennsylvania after the death of their mother. Kyle and Jen are estranged at best. Nothing goes all that smoothly as they traverse the house room by room.
Delineation of conflicts:
Kyle took care of Judy as her health declined and as his divorce from Sara was in grim stages. Jen skipped most of that. Kyle does not forget, and Jen basically does not care. Kyle ends up packing all the house except the library since the self-involved Jen wants to look at every page in every book, and there are hundreds of books: Judy was a local college professor in some sort of humanities discipline.
Judy was the only Asian in many square miles of only blue-eyed Northern Europeans. Both Kyle and Jen make the joke 'Did you just racially profile me?' when the locals (who all loved Judy) easily identify them as Judy's children. This is tiresome after a while. Plus there was more of that hierarchy of sort of language.
Kyle is resentful of Jen's narcissism, and does not much care for her friends.
The siblings see some quite personal photos of their mother on her computer. First they want to keep it quiet, but then Jen gets the strong urge to find out who the other party might be.
Resolution: The brother and sister patch things up a bit, and they know a bit more about their mother.
One line summary: Relentlessly boring vanity film.
Statistics:
Cinematography: 5/10 Barely better than VHS. Throw in bad framing and odd focusing choices, and I was ready to skip this slow, slow boat to nowhere.
Sound: 5/10 I could hear the dialog, but it often sounded hollow. Foley was largely absent. Mood music was next to absent, and often consisted of one instrument playing for five or so bars.
Acting: 4/10 Jo Mei's acting sucked rocks; may I never see her again. Andrew Pang was fine. Lucas Dixon and Teyonah Parris were reasonable, anyway.
Screenplay: 4/10 Just a tad too self-aware. By the time the boring nonsense flowed downhill into the glorification of using weed, I was done with the film. Throw in the weed cliches to keep the flow going downhill. As per usual, trying to keep secrets does not usually bear good fruit.
Final rating: 4/10 Jen's narcissism. Endless. Pointless.
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