We Are Gamily

Let’s start by acknowledging Zero Chou’s incredible presence in WLW cinema. She’s someone who’s really committed to making queer films. We are Gamily is part of Chou’s yet-to-be-finished series called Over the Rainbow. The concept is six queer films set in different Asian cities. We Are Gamily takes place in Chengdu, China. It’s dramatic and comedic by turn and deals heavily with gay oppression and inequality. I wish I liked it better. Chou is an incredible director. And perhaps because I’m already a fan of her output, We Are Gamily fell short of my high expectations for a Zero Chou film.

We Are Gamily is a comedy of errors based around lavender relationships. Yang Duo and Wu Gang meet on an app for those in search of lavender relationships. Both have same-sex partners but struggle with parental pressure to get married. The two are very enthusiastic about their sham marriage. But neither of their partners share this enthusiasm. Duo’s girlfriend cheats on her, which ends that relationship. Gang maintains a relationship with his boyfriend, Sam, but Sam isn’t happy with the situation either. Then, Gang’s overly interventionist mother comes to stay. And she brings Gang’s sister, Rou. Rou is also gay, but rejects the idea of closeting herself. Duo and Rou fall for one another. But the difference in opinion about lavender relationships and being open continues to be a problem for both couples.

I really like lavender relationship movies. Or, at least, the concept. There’s a great opportunity to depict unconventional families and explore the theme of family of choice. Also, I just love MLM/WLW solidarity. On a personal level, I might’ve preferred We Are Gamily to have more of the found family dynamic. Duo and Gang have so much in common. I would’ve liked to see more of them growing as friends and becoming genuine family. Instead, We Are Gamily takes a broader, more exploratory route. The numerous queer characters in the film have different opinions on lavender relationships. And it is great to see that all these opinions get roughly equal screen time and respect. How to be gay in a homophobic location is a question that doesn’t have any right answers. And I do appreciate We Are Gamily for showing nuance and alternative opinions.

We Are Gamily leans heavy into cliche and tropes. And for once, I do think it’s a pretty good execution of at least some of these tropes. I’ve seen all of the comedy beats and punchlines present in other works. But that didn’t stop these moments getting a laugh out of me in We Are Gamily. The romances are similarly trope-heavy. If that’s something you enjoy, this film will probably appeal to you. They didn’t do too much for me, though. Especially in Duo and Rou’s case, a lot of their actual romance is off-screen. Onscreen, we get these few very cliche and dramatic moments. Personally, these onscreen moments of classic romantic cliche aren’t enough to sell the whole relationship to me. I would’ve liked some quieter moments that happen in between these big, showy scenes.

Much of the comedy comes from the characters hiding their gayness from Gang and Rou’s mother. It’s classic comedy scrapes. But their mother is also deeply homophobic and broadly manipulative. She pretends to have a terminal disease in order to hasten Rou to marry. Perhaps Chou was exorcising some demons with this mother character. She’s a very broad, over the top stand-in taken from real life experiences with homophobia and controlling elders. She also gets a redemption arc courtesy of an innocent child reminding her that hey, at least your kids aren’t dead. The passion and real-life relevance regarding this mother character rings true. But little of this is funny. Yet this mother character is the centre of many of the film’s comedic scenes.

I had major issues with pacing and editing in We Are Gamily. Having seen several Zero Chou films, this really surprised me. Her earlier work, made with less budget and experience felt tighter than this film. Then, I saw that at least some platforms released We Are Gamily as an episodic web series. I don’t know which format is the “official” release. I do know that seeing it released as a web series made a lot of sense. Lots of my issues with scenes running over-long and the odd pacing make some sense if this story was meant to be consumed episodically. Web series and film are different mediums. The pacing is radically different. Audience expectations are different too. Regardless of which version is first or correct, I think viewing this as a series is probably a better way to watch it.

Assuming We Are Gamily is meant to be a series also explains the genre inconsistencies. This film has both broad moments of comedy and deeply devastating emotional scenes where everyone just cries for like, two uninterrupted minutes. Again, watching this story serialized and perhaps not in one sitting would make this tonal shift work better. Watching it as a film in one sitting, I was consistently thrown by such shifts in genre. It rarely felt like the film got a handle on one before switching to the emotional opposite.

I wish I liked We Are Gamily. I went into it excited to see another film from LGBTQ* cinema icon, Zero Chou. And then I spent most of the film wondering why and how Chou had produced such a mediocre project. Because it’s an easy explanation, I’m going to place the blame at the door of this potentially being a web series retooled as a film. Too much of this story doesn’t feel cinematic. There’s a lot of padding, yet crucial moments also happen off-screen. The editing and pacing don’t work. And sadly, that brings the whole film down. There’s just too much of this story that failed to meet my admittedly high expectations for a Zero Chou film.

Overall rating: 4.7/10

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