TIFF Movie Review – Ilo Ilo (2013)

The growing bond between a young boy and his nanny has a dramatic impact on the entire family.

  

A pregnant mother (Yann Yann Yeo) who is an office administrator and her salesman husband (Tian Wen Chen) hire a young Filipino nanny (Angeli Bayani) to look after their bratty prep school son (Koh Jia Ler).  Complicating matters for the family are the dire economic times facing Singapore during the late 1990s which sees the matriarch having to compose employee dismissal letters and the patriarch losing his job.  Even the domestic foreign helper is face with financial woes as she seeks to support her baby which her sister can no longer look after.

In many ways Ilo Ilois a character study bookended by the arrival and departure of the nanny.  Potential storylines are hinted but never followed through except for the one dealing with the lottery tickets.  Perhaps this a reflection of life being a series of loose ends that never come to a tidy conclusion.  Thankfully a potential Hollywood moment is avoided involving the son and his ability to pick winning numbers; he also has a touching moment with a lock of hair where no words are needed to express his emotional devastation.

Each character has a sympathetic moment whether it is nanny making phone calls back home, the mother falling for a false motivational prophet, the father struggling to find gainful employment while losing a fortune on the stock market, and the son being left alone in a taxi cab at the airport.  Amongst all the grief and turmoil there is some humour with the funniest incident occurring when an apparently unbreakable piece glass snaps into two pieces.

It is hard to imagine the transformation between the son and nanny which seems to abruptly change or perhaps that is the way things go with relationships.  Somehow it does not seem completely true unlike the father who comes across as man genuinely faltering to support his family.  The simplicity of the editing and cinematography give the actors ample room to perform.  The final shot of the baby being born seems to be a scene too long; the moment before with the father and son sitting listening to music together in the hospital waiting room feels like a more a fitting ending as it provides a sense of hope within the domestic unrest.