My Mom always wanted me to learn Mandarin. I guess it had something to do with being cultured. When I hit 7^th grade, she forcibly enrolled me in a Macalester College course for new Chinese speakers. Macalester College, home of the Scots, is a small liberal arts school in St. Paul, MN with notable alumni including former Vice President Walter Mondale, former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, and talent agent Ari Emanuel—yeah, the Entourage guy. Pretty prestigious stuff. She figured I might follow their footsteps.

What was supposedly a “college” course turned out to be just a course at a college. My Mom had enrolled me in a class for 4+ year-old Chinese children whose parents wanted them to learn formal Mandarin. Average age in the course? Six. And that was with me in it. Strangely enough, I only made it through about eight weeks until I’d had enough. In that time I learned that I was měiguó rén (American), which had a funky -zh sound my mouth couldn’t replicate. That’s about all I remember.

Lilting’s characters seem about as preoccupied with race as I was. There’s Zhōngguó or Yīngguó and a lot of animus in between. Junn (Cheng Pei-Pei) is the former, an elderly Chinese-Cambodian woman whose son Kai (Andrew Leung) has put her in an old folks’ home in Britain. When he visits her, she laments that he doesn’t visit enough, that he always forgets to bring her favorite CD, that she hates the home. At least she’s started dating Alan (Peter Bowles), an old British man who can keep her company. “My father was half-white,” Kai says. She scolds him. “Your father was Chinese.” Then Kai disappears.

Richard (Ben Whishaw, Skyfall), Kai’s white boyfriend, goes to visit her one day and we learn that Kai’s passed. Junn doesn’t speak any English, but she’s managed to find a way to hate Richard all the same. Of course, she doesn’t know that he and Kai were dating—only that the two lived together. So, Richard finds Vann (Naomi Christie), a translator who can help them communicate through their anguish. This only seems to make things worse: Richard and Junn’s tempers escalate as we learn more and more about Kai’s struggle to come out and his eventual death.

Lilting looks at life through rose-colored glasses, in the sense that every shot has been color-corrected pink. The insinuation here is clear: beneath the warm surface you’ll find a deep chill. The effect is jarring but in no way pernicious. Lilting fuzzes and blurs past and present. Junn and Richard’s memories of Kai slowly fade in the same way. Their sadness isn’t nostalgic, rather more tragic. Tears don’t ever fall—they evaporate as fast as Kai vanishes. Junn and Richard’s struggles act as therapy. They’re trying to keep Kai alive.

There isn’t a lot of bliss in Lilting. Every situation devolves into an argument when reminders of Kai dull any pleasure. But, despite the constant arguing, Lilting has a lot to say about culture and loss. Vann acts as the film’s pseudo-narrator. Translating English to Chinese and vice-versa, she bridges the culture gap. Through Vann, Junn and Alan learn that they don’t have as much in common as they thought, and their cultural differences seem too difficult to overcome. Though Richard can now communicate through Vann, he still can’t admit to Junn that Kai was gay.

Yet, Vann’s interpreter role is only cursory. She’s there to fill in the blanks, but the film would have worked just as well without her. This, in part, is due to the phenomenal acting by the entire cast, notably Cheng and Whishaw, who take on a brutal grief. Whishaw is aggressive and delicate all at once, like a flower that can’t figure out whether it should bloom. Cheng seems to know a mother’s grief from experience. She makes it feel real.

Lilting has two set pieces: the poorly lit elderly home and Richard’s apartment. Credit to writer/director Hong Khaou for making every moment interesting. The quiet moments are jarring and the loud moments are appropriately reserved. Perhaps the best line in the film was the most harmless: “I wish there was a Shazam for smell.” Every observation is just as keen, and holds a deeper weight. Whishaw and Cheng were so magnetic that Lilting could have worked sans any dialogue at all.

By the end I felt like I was in 7^th grade again, just trying to figure out where a simple měiguó rén might fit in all this confusion. Though Khaou’s film might have been filled with conflict, my judgment was never conflicted: Lilting will take you somewhere you’ve never been before. I wish there were a Shazam for emotions. Lilting flew me all across the spectrum.