So Long, My Son | Telescope Film
So Long, My Son

So Long, My Son (地久天长)

Critic Rating

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User Rating

  • China
  • 2019
  • · 185m

Director Wang Xiaoshuai
Cast Wang Jingchun, Yong Mei, Qi Xi, Du Jiang, Ai Liya, Li Jingjing
Genre Drama

Two families do their best to navigate the sweeping changes in Chinese society from the 1980s to the present day in this multi-generational drama. A powerful portrait of the ways that momentous political and economic events can shape the lives of individuals in all their fragility and resilience.

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What are critics saying?

100

The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw

So Long, My Son is a piercingly, profoundly moving picture that peels and exposes the senses.

100

The Observer (UK) by Wendy Ide

So measured is the pacing, so sinuous the timeline, so understated the subtle ache of the performances that you don’t immediately realise that Wang Xiaoshuai’s exquisite three-hour drama has been performing the emotional equivalent of open-heart surgery on the audience since pretty much the first scene.

100

CineVue by Christopher Machell

Subsumed by the bigger picture, the plot resurfaces at the end to utterly devastating effect. Only a film with the epic sweep of So Long, My Son could pull off such a narrative feat so beautifully.

100

Screen Daily by Jonathan Romney

A challenging narrative structure - withholding key information and skipping between several time frames - makes this film a daunting watch overall. But Wang’s ambition and seriousness, aided by strong ensemble performances, ensure it is a formidable and, for the most part, involving work of novelistic scope.

90

Variety by Jessica Kiang

Utterly wrenching.

80

The Irish Times by Tara Brady

It’s Lee Chatametikool’s temporal-jumping edits that define this compelling drama.

80

Empire by Ian Freer

Beautifully played — especially by Wang Jingchun — So Long, My Son is sprawling, audacious, sometimes bewildering, ultimately moving. It tests your patience but it’s worth it.

80

CineVue by Patrick Gamble

At just over three-hours, So Long, My Son is an emotionally wrenching film that’s epic in scope but intimate in feeling.

60

The Hollywood Reporter by Deborah Young

A long, leisurely drama directed with self-assurance.