In Between Days: A teenage immigrant's so-called-life

Reviewer: Erin Donovan
Rating (out of 5): ***½

One of the marks of a strong film director is one who can make something greater than the sum of its parts. In Between Days has a micro budget, non-professional (teenage) actors, a bleak Toronto winter setting, very little dialogue and an entire universe of ennui all under the banner of a title taken from a Cure song.

First-time writer/director So Yong Kim, already an established painter, film producer and multi-media artist, pays special attention to the visual and sound design of her feature film debut. Teaming up here with cinematographer Sarah Levy, the film has a syrupy quality that enlarges and minimizes the things happening around her to suit Aimie's emotional state. In Between Days is a well-paced yet detailed account of the day to day life of teenage immigrant at the threshold of sexuality and national identity. Kim deftly sidesteps cliche and preciousness by focusing with careful precision on the root beginnings of the deceptive nature of gender communication and the all-encompassing frustration of being a non-English speaker in a teenage world where conformity is key.

Recently immigrated from South Korea, naive and gawky Aimie has a crush on her friend and tutor Tran. But he is only interested in the more Americanized (read: easy) girls that they go to school with, who wear trendy clothes and listen to American pop music. Aimie pines for Tran, rebuffs his sexual advances, writes letters brimming with false optimism to her father who has chosen to stay in Korea, fights with her mother, then shakes the Etch a Sketch and starts each day over again. The film pays special mind to only relay information from Aimie's inwardly focused point of view. Tran's life at times seems to be spinning out of control (he drinks heavily at parties and gets kicked out of his home) and Aimie's mother embarks on a new relationship with a serious boyfriend, but we never get any details on their lives because Aimie is too withdrawn and self-conscious to ask the questions herself.

Reflecting the mindset of its protagonist no doubt, the film at times feels unnecessarily bleak (though this probably explains why it was a critical favorite at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006). The scenes from Aimie's English lessons are almost more painful than the uncomfortable passes the more sexually precocious Tran makes. Aimie has no support system and it feels as if at any point she could fall into complete vertigo.

DVD extras include a brief interview with writer/director So Yong Kim and her husband producer/co-writer Bradley Rusy Gray where they discuss (with strained humor) the unpredictable nature of working with first-time teenage actors.

See also: Old Joy, The Motel, Ghost World, My So-Called Life, Stephanie Daley, The Quiet, L'Enfant.