Meili

Meili is not an enjoyable film. It’s not supposed to be. This is a distinctly feel-bad movie. I respect basically all of the choices this small-budget Chinese film makes. But that small budget and distinctly bleak plot really does put a cap on how highly I can rate the film.

Protagonist Meili’s days are bleak and depressing. The film focuses on the way that many people in Meili’s life mistreat her. Her sister and in-laws expect Meili to financially support their young child. And they’re not too kind in asking about it. Later revelations double down on exactly how unpleasant these in-laws are. Meili also acts as a caretaker for her sick girlfriend, Li Wen. Li Wen’s job invites her to Shanghai for several months. And Li Wen initially invites Meili along which offers Meili a level of hope and opportunity. However, Li Wen retracts the invitation, fearing for her job security and the optics of bringing her girlfriend along. So, Li Wen leaves Meili alone. Meili’s job fires her too. While Meili also has a group of supportive friends, none of them nor anyone else can offer enough support to turn the tides in Meili’s miserable life.

On many websites, the film’s plot summary gives away the ending and frames the story different than the reality. These plot summaries focus on an incident of sexual violence Meili experiences. First of all, good news! The sexual assault is off-screen. Secondly, said incident of violence is a third-act reveal. You spend much of the movie with this character not knowing of this specific traumatic event. The reveal of it taking place reframes Meili’s relationship to her family and adds another layer of deep sadness and despair to a character who had enough of that going for her already.

The film finds a good balance in depicting issues that relate to Meili being a lesbian living in China and issues that are irrelevant to that fact. Meili’s job struggles don’t have any bearing on her sexuality. Her relationship with her girlfriend and necessary closeting obviously do. And as for her family, they’d definitely be awful anyways, but there’s an additional sprinkling of homophobia on top of that. This makes the film depressingly well-rounded. They neither ignore Meili’s sexuality and how that might affect her well-being or safety, nor does the film suggest this is the only element of Meili’s existence or struggles. The phrase “pick a struggle” is running through my head. And truly, Meili as both character and film picked all of them.

The film’s perpetual bleakness lends to a sort of mundanity to all of Meili’s misfortune. There stops being distinct levels of bad events and it all runs together into a grey mishmash of a complete lack of joy. There’s an almost numbing effect for both character an audience as you continue to spend your time with this unfortunate protagonist. Though never was I fully numb and disconnected because neither is Meili. Meili spends a lot of this film crying. Which is relatable. Especially because her tears do seem justified. With everything else being so terrible, it makes sense that this poor protagonist is at her wit’s end and is as likely to breakdown because of a minor convenience as a major trauma.

The small-scale, bleak mundanity of Meili is well-executed and effective. But such a film is again, going to have a cap on how highly I rate it. It’s not just the tragedy but the fact that the film is so mundane and personal. Plus again, it’s an absolute bummer of a watch. Obviously, all of this is intentional. But as I look through my increasingly lengthy list of WLW films I’ve seen, I can only offer Meili a spot in the middle. It’s a well done film that achieves what it wants to achieve. But what it wants to achieve is on a small enough scale that it can’t compete with larger scale films, even those that are similarly feel-bad.

Overall rating: 5.8/10

Other WLW films in similar genres