Anthony Chen reflects on modern Singapore in ‘We Are All Strangers’

The film is quick to establish the specifics of its premise, but the real thrill of watching it is the gradual discovery of each character through their delightful interactions, many of which unfold in the vibrant nighttime glow of Boon Kiat’s stall. Chen mirrors the naïveté of young love with the joys of romantic rediscovery, but confers on them an equal importance as challenges are gradually thrown in both their paths. The conversational flow stems from the realistic use of Singlish (a form of Singaporean English peppered with Mandarin and local slang), resulting in scenes that, although they seem to be about nothing in particular beyond the moment itself, draw out the internal lives of each character through dramatic naturalism.

Equally potent is the movie’s use of space: it captures the contours of Singapore, wealthy and working class alike, in a manner that’s thematically pointed but never visually overpronounced. This finely-woven tapestry is both welcoming to outsiders unfamiliar with the island nation and deeply familiar to anyone who lives there, or has even visited, granting immediate legitimacy to the unspoken hurdles that continually crop up, even as the movie’s realism begins to tend towards the florid. Chen commands these shifting modes as though he were experimenting with both street theatre and soap opera, though it certainly helps that he’s so in tune with his actors—Yeo and Koh especially, who appeared in both previous “Growing Up” entries.

Chen’s working relationship with Koh dates back to when the latter was only 11 years old, but the entwinement of their lives arguably gave rise to this film. Koh, like his character, also dropped out of high school, prompting Chen to explore, in his script, the kind of uncertainty Koh would have likely experienced in Singapore’s modern economic landscape. With its many references to foreign expats taking up space, and its use of cramped physical environments to enhance character conflicts, We Are All Strangers is just as steeped in the petty aggressions brought on by forced proximity as it is in the love that can gradually bloom from such scenarios.

Junyang, for instance, is no fan of the headstrong hustler Bee Hwa when she begins dating his father—an enmity born of his own anxieties over the future, and him seeing her as a replacement for his late mother—but their dynamic eventually becomes the story’s difficult heart and soul. Boon Kiat, meanwhile, remains a kindly presence whose optimism is tested by circumstance, while the upbeat Lydia is forced to grow up far too quickly by rigid social expectations, leading to tensions between her Junyang as he tries to find his footing through various odd jobs and starter careers.

In an overarching sense, We Are All Strangers is a film that bounces its characters between social rigidities, and its drama is born from the impact of ricochet. However, Chen’s delicate aesthetic approach imbues the story’s grounded-ness with an epic sweep, between his careful attention to each environment—tenets like production design and even color temperature impact the tenor of several scenes—and even the film’s pacing and editing. That it begins in languid, drawn-out fashion but then seems to speed up as the years go by, and as things become more difficult, is—intentionally or otherwise—a moving reflection of the way time itself is experienced in a social sense, from the outstretched nature of youth, to the forward charge of weeks and months when it seems one’s time is being cut short. It’s about what a place does to people, and what people do to one another, in a tale whose direction ends up beguiling, if only because of the precarious unpredictability of modern life in the gig economy.

At the emotional epicenter of the movie are the bonds of family—not only frayed by estrangement, but strengthened through romance, and reforged through the mutual recognition of how people are changed by the gradual, cracking pressures of a world where money can in fact buy happiness, or at least temporary relief. For those who can’t afford escape, what remains is the difficult pull-and-push of a society where it’s easy to be discarded. For the characters in We Are All Strangers, getting by is a luxury, but the desire to survive is also buoyed by the need for joy and contentment, resulting in a clash of forces so primal and fundamental that the movie becomes deceptively simple in the process. It’s as much about making a living as it is about simply living—and about the ways love fits into that difficult equation—yielding one of the most wistful and moving dramas you’re likely to see this year.