80
Chen’s delicate, nuanced portrait of the heartbreaks afflicting a dedicated schoolteacher and dutiful wife is suffused with love and humor, and directed with striking maturity and restraint.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
It is easy to see where Wet Season is heading but Chen invests so much in the needs and flaws of the central duo that you want to see how it plays out.
70
The New York Times by Beatrice Loayza
Wei Lun comes off as one-dimensional in his brash, immature pursuit of Ling, yet their illicit relationship is portrayed in an anti-sensationalist light, blurring the lines between maternal and romantic love.
75
RogerEbert.com by Carlos Aguilar
If you feel like you know where it’s headed, you are probably correct. But while Chen’s refusal to subvert commonplace elements is disappointing, there’s a sharp note of sorrowful, aching understanding running through the protagonists’ shared ordeal.
50
San Francisco Chronicle by G. Allen Johnson
As a woman struggling to define her own narrative, Yeo delivers a layered, heartbreaking performance. But she is ultimately ill-served by both the inertness of the story and Chen’s awkward approach to the material in the final half-hour (no spoilers here).
60
The Hollywood Reporter by Jordan Mintzer
A student-teacher romance that’s so slow-burn it almost never flares up, Wet Season marks a skillfully observant if somewhat tepid and overwrought sophomore effort from Singaporean director Anthony Chen.
90
Los Angeles Times by Katie Walsh
Writer-director Chen, along with the two leads, delicately navigates this story, and the result is something deeply humanist and nuanced rather than sensational, though the rainy milieu adds drama to the proceedings.
80
The film develops not in grand gestures but in an accumulation of small, gentle moments.
75
The Film Stage by Rory O'Connor
Chen is never blatantly forthright in showing the prejudice at work in Ling’s day-today, allowing it instead to subtly seep into the film; we need only sift the tea leaves.