Siyou Tan’s ‘Amoeba’ is high school rebellion at its best

Before long, Xin Yu is absorbed by Vanessa’s tight-knit friend group, consisting of wealthy it-girl Sofia Tay (Shi-An Lim)—“T-A-Y,” she reminds them, “Not T-E-H”—and boisterous tomboy Gina Wong (Genevieve Tan). When Xin Yu admits to being haunted by a mysterious spirit, only Sofia believes her, but this doesn’t stop the foursome from gallivanting together around a nearby construction site and discovering old relics. There’s a sense of mischief to each interaction, whether captured through Siyou Tan’s firm-but-fluid lens, or the roving, lo-fi camcorder the girls bring with them on every hangout.

The film’s overarching plot is more concerned with minutiae and the nitty-gritties of high school life than with any looming event, though the girls’ pending applications and exams for junior college make for a worthwhile backdrop, forcing them to consider their futures. In the meantime, however, the lively quartet grows increasingly defiant and disobedient, albeit in small ways that go unrecognized by their teachers. Xin Yu, who’s reprimanded for the short length of her skirt, overcompensates with a nearly floor-length uniform, but still performs martial arts high kicks for the group’s mischievous videos. They’re surrounded by rules, and by symbols of reverence—a statue of the school’s founder, and Singapore’s famous Merlion monument, an emblem of national identity—so it's only natural that they’d act out and adopt the label of a “gang,” even though their racket only extends to sharing foul-mouthed frustrations about the world and people around them (which they ill-advisedly record).

Their school and their country’s erected statues, they’re told, are vital to understanding who they are, but at the same time, the old relics discovered at their quarry hangout are considered with far less curiosity and importance. Singapore, a lovely city and country though it may be, tends to have its picturesque social fabric upheld by a staunch and rigid nationalism that trickles down to its postcolonial schooling, which leaves room for nothing new. Although the four leads aren’t old or mature enough to track all these specifics and create a tapestry of praxis, their building exasperations tend to gesture in all these directions at once, as though Tan were looking back at breadcrumbs she didn’t notice the first time around.

However, what makes Amoeba such an enrapturing watch isn’t just its political purview. Rather, it’s that the movie’s central characters arrive so fully formed that you can seldom look away. Sometimes a hangout is just a hangout, but in front of Tan’s camera, it’s an immersive flashback to a time when life was a series of possibilities, as exciting as they were unknowable, and everything stopping you from growing up and feeling free felt like a Sisyphean punishment. Parents and teachers are meant to be the people they turn to, but the only adult they feel comfortable confiding in, and befriending, is one who doesn’t have dominion over them: Sofia’s family’s chauffeur, the delightful Uncle Phoon (Jack Kao).

The film’s time period is nebulous; the lack of smartphones and the hazy digital camera the girls use hint at something from 15 or 20 years ago, but Amoeba is also removed from time in a way that makes it timelessly absorbing. The performances also go a long way to expressing its most nostalgic sensations. Genevieve Tan, for instance, verges on broad comic relief as Gina, but masks a recognizable insecurity behind each jab. Tay, who fearlessly leads the ensemble, moves and emotes with more purpose than any young actress in recent memory, crafting a multidimensional character whose conflicting thoughts and actions are, at once, obscured (to those around her) by her attitude and demeanor, yet completely lucid (to the audience) in their intimate intentions.

As a young, possibly closeted teen, all Xin Yu wants is to be seen and accepted, whether at home or at school, and in moments she isn’t able to fully and freely express herself, it feels like she could spontaneously combust. A stark cut, from a moment of sexual and romantic curiosity with a friend, to a scene of the young protagonist hugging herself as she lets loose to music—as she escapes out of one moment, and into the next—is one of the most invigorating instances of editing-as-psychology you’re likely to see this year.

All four young actresses are a treat, whether lost in noisy frolic and conversations about nothing in particular, or at each other’s throats over drama that, in retrospect, will surely seem silly to them several years from now. But in the moment, as the movie plays out, it’s the most important thing in the world, just as Xin Yu’s search for a spirit in her bedroom becomes a desperate grasp at some kind of defined identity—the haunted girl!—at a time when the ground beneath the characters’ feet is constantly shifting.

Siyou Tan, cinematographer Neus Ollé and editor Félix Rehm create a remarkably lived-in reality—the rhythms of which are so gradually affecting you may not even realize the film has pierced your heart until it’s too late. Xin Yu’s search for self, at a time in her life defined by shapelessness, is far from complete by the time the credits roll (in fact, it may never be complete), but crossing paths with an older friend group who, like Tan, look back with stories of their youth, becomes a gleaming nexus point where past and future meet, gently shaking hands in a moment of understanding. It’s just one of several dozen scenes you could point to and say, “That’s it! That’s the one that understands me!” And really, you wouldn’t be wrong. Punk rock treasures like Amoeba don’t come around very often.