Starring: Cindy Cheung, Michael Chen, Crystal Chiu
Written & Directed By: Tze Chun
Grade: B
Written & Directed By: Tze Chun
Grade: B
Tze Chun’s micro-budget film, Children of Invention, debuted at Sundance and is now showing at the Cleveland International Film Festival. You barely notice it is low budget as it feels both very natural and striking. Tze Chun based the film on his personal experiences growing up, which explains the overwhelming truth that is shown through every character.
Children of Invention follows Elaine Cheung (Cheung), a single mom who immigrated from Hong Kong with her husband years ago. After having two kids with this man, Raymond (Chen) and Tina (Chiu), he left them and went back to Hong Kong. He’s very sporadic with his child support so Elaine is on her own. Things have recently gotten much worse since their house had been foreclosed on. Now they are living in a model home since they can’t afford to pay rent anywhere. They can barely afford to eat. Elaine is always working a handful of odd jobs since she is not an American citizen and is limited in what she can do. She hasn’t been able to get any work that pays her nearly enough to take care of her family. Elaine has been involved in plenty of non-risk get rich quick schemes. However, she comes across one that might be more risky. She answers an ad for what she assumes is a legitimate company. She gets a call back and attends a company party where she learns more about the company. They want her to be a principle salesman focusing on the Chinese population. However, it costs $2,500 to be a member, which is required to work in the program. Elaine tries to get a loan or for her husband to send some money, but after awhile the company agrees to waive the membership fee for now if she will pay the fee back when she gets her first check. Elaine is thrilled and gets to work immediately, determined to get enough clients to make some money herself. However, her boss seems to have disappeared. When she goes looking for her she finds herself in trouble by association.
A great deal of Children of Invention is focused on the kids. It shows how they try to get by day by day, with one parent across the world and the other barely present. Tina seems to still have faith in her mother, but Raymond’s hope is growing weaker and weaker. He realizes that he has to become the man of the house. He makes sure Tina has something to eat, putting her before himself. They are largely living off Ramen noodles as they can’t really scrounge up enough money for anything else. Raymond’s role becomes all the more literal when their mother disappears. When she doesn’t come home one night, Raymond realizes that they will have to find a way to survive on their own. Raymond has a vibrant and inventive mind. He makes inventions out of household items for fun. He decides that he needs to take this to the next level though. He was left $500 for his birthday. Raymond decides he will attempt to take the check to Boston to get it cashed and then he will invest it in supplies for his inventions. Raymond and Tina can then sell these and ensure that they will be able to fend for themselves.
All of the performances in Children of Invention were very impressive. Cindy Cheung brings us the overworked, worrisome, and somewhat naïve Elaine. She is trying to work a number of jobs, consuming her time from dawn until dusk. She is doing this because she wants a better life for her children. In being so desperate to start making things better quick, she falls in to a number of scams, one which made them lose their house in the first place. Cheung shows Elaine’s vulnerabilities very well and although in a flawed sense we see her overwhelming desire to be a good mother. It pains her seeing Raymond take on responsibilities that shouldn’t be up to him. Cheung gets us to care about Elaine and to understand what she is attempting to do, although we wish she would wise up to what is going on around her.
Both Michael Chen and Crystal Chiu are cases of gifted child actors that understand their characters and allows us to understand them in the same way. Crystal Chiu is adorable as Tina, the younger of the two. Her dialogue and actions are all very childlike and it was good that her character was so true to life as I believe this person would act just the way that we see through the character and through Chiu. Michael Chen had a more mature role as Raymond. He worried about financial troubles and was ready to take care of his sister, taking on the fatherly role immediately. Chen shows that he has been wounded by both of his parents and has formed a sense of independence because of this. What is great about Raymond is that he is not purely an adult in a child’s shoes. The inventions and fantasies that he has illustrates that he still has a great youthfulness to him.
Both Michael Chen and Crystal Chiu are cases of gifted child actors that understand their characters and allows us to understand them in the same way. Crystal Chiu is adorable as Tina, the younger of the two. Her dialogue and actions are all very childlike and it was good that her character was so true to life as I believe this person would act just the way that we see through the character and through Chiu. Michael Chen had a more mature role as Raymond. He worried about financial troubles and was ready to take care of his sister, taking on the fatherly role immediately. Chen shows that he has been wounded by both of his parents and has formed a sense of independence because of this. What is great about Raymond is that he is not purely an adult in a child’s shoes. The inventions and fantasies that he has illustrates that he still has a great youthfulness to him.
One thing very interesting about Children of Invention is that for the most part we see this very adult world from the child’s perspective. This is a youthful perspective, but one that is forced to grow up practically over night. The display of their perception of what it takes to make it in the world and the creative plight they have to do this through is captivating just as many dreamlike sequences that reveal the children’s inner most desires. They really dream of having their own house back. They don’t know how much this would cost, but as they know it’s a lot of money, 1 million dollars becomes the magic number to them. They try to navigate through the city, which quickly becomes very intimidating as they aren’t even supposed to leave the house. The images are very striking through this. There are bright lights everywhere among the darkness of the city as it was an off limits place to go alone and had this very scary and intimidating feel to these children. They form a bit of a sense of adventure, which is what carries their actions. Their imagination embodies them and they have the strength to act on these ambitions, even when they get a reality check once in awhile that the world they are living in is not quite the same world that their imaginations create. Children of Invention is a view on the troubles for immigrants. It shows the constant possibility of loss for illegal immigrants, particularly through how they are targeted. It is a rare film that shows adult struggles and in return the perception of the self-determined children through this life where attaining simple things become an adventure.
