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VAFF 2009 | White on Rice
White on Rice
USA, 2009, 85min
DIR Dave Boyle
![White-On-Rice2[1].jpg](http://www.schemamag.ca/assets/White-On-Rice2%5B1%5D.jpg)
Every family has one - the dorky, loser single uncle with a dead-end job who lives with some sort of relative. In White on Rice, the uncle in question is Jimmy. Jimmy is 40 years old, recently divorced, has no career, and freeloads off his sister, her young son Justin, and her very disapproving husband. Everyone in Jimmy's life is set on hooking Jimmy up with a new wife, however finding love is difficult - especially since Jimmy has the unfortunate habit of saying just the wrong thing at the wrong moment. Enter Ramona, the gorgeous niece of Jimmy's brother-in-law, Tak. Jimmy sets his sights on wooing Ramona, but he has competition in the form of Tim (James Kyson Lee, Heroes), his hunky buddy who just happens to have a past with Ramona.
White on Rice is an awkwardly humourous movie about a lovable loser who stumbles through life. Hiroshi Watanabe excellently plays the bumbling Jimmy, his every facial expression twitching with childish innocence. Although we are supposed to feel empathy towards Jimmy, sometimes I found myself wondering how anyone could be so lacking in common sense. And, unlike North American slacker films, the humour is more slapstick than potty. The real star of this film is the young son, Bob, played by a deadpan Justin Kwong. Young Kwong delivers the funniest lines of the film with his wise-beyond-his-years performance as a child genius and entrepreneur who is largely forgotten by everyone. It is through Bob that we realize that the real children are the adults who fumble their way through relationships: Jimmy with his ill-fated romancing of Ramona, and his sister Aiko and brother-in-law Tak's attempts to rekindle their marriage.
Writer and director Dave Boyle delivers a cute and charming film but leaves the audience wanting for more. It might have been a better film if Boyle had further pushed the boundaries with his humour and characters. Unfortunately, White on Rice is kinda like eating a bowl of steamed rice: satisfying and perfectly acceptable, but also kinda bland and forgettable.
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November 10, 2009 at 9:18 PM
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