\n\tThe spark between two soon-to-be lovers ignites inside a Latin nightclub in New York City, as the pair dance with clumsy playfulness to the Spanish romantic ballad \u201cUn Velero Llamado Libertad\u201d (A Sailboat Named Freedom). Their origins and struggles couldn\u2019t be more disparate: She is an undocumented immigrant who\u2019s part of China\u2019s persecuted Uyghur ethnic minority; he\u2019s a white Army veteran with no clear direction and a chronic case of PTSD.<\/p>\n
\n\tHolding on their comforting stares and unspoken exchanges with only Emile Mosseri\u2019s sonic drizzle of a score as company, filmmaker Bing Liu<\/a> (best known for his Oscar-nominated documentary \u201cMinding the Gap\u201d) delicately traces their blossoming and improbable romance in his first foray into fiction, \u201cPreparation for the Next Life<\/a>,\u201d based on Atticus Lish\u2019s 2014 novel of the same name, written for the screen by Martyna Majok.<\/p>\n \n\tNeither the dangerously rampant mental health afflictions among military folk nor the dehumanization and exploitation of undocumented people have gone unexplored in American cinema. However, the character-driven humanism of \u201cPreparation\u201d makes these topics feel experientially explored through concrete events and interactions, rather than simply superimposed on a narrative. The drama observes how the circumstances shape their relationship, turning the mundane into their battleground.<\/p>\n \n\tWhat tethers Aishe (Sebiye Behtiyar) and Skinner (Fred Hechinger) so intensely to one another, despite their seemingly incompatible backgrounds, is the shared feeling that they don\u2019t naturally belong to the world in front of them. Isolated while surrounded by millions of people, they find in one another a life-affirming anchor. At one point, early in their courtship, the camera moves through layers of people to find them silently licking McDonald\u2019s soft-serve cones, visually pushing everyone aside to make them the center of it all.<\/p>\n \n\tDuring the honeymoon phase of their relationship\u00a0\u2014 which will become a blistering chronicle of impossible love and resilience in modern America \u2014 Liu and cinematographer Ante Cheng capture the couple and the city with an ebullient dynamism, making the urban vistas and the crowded streets of Chinatown seem almost idyllic. But that aura of possibility begins to fade when the less pleasant edges of their respective realties come to light.<\/p>\n \n\tAt first, their bond hinges on physicality. They dare one another to do pushups, to chug down beers. Aisha prides herself on her body\u2019s fortitude, earned through years of training with her soldier father. Narrated flashbacks to her childhood in the vast landscapes of China reveal a yearning for a previous existence she can\u2019t go back to. Her \u201cnext life\u201d is the here and now in the U.S., where a steadfast conviction to appear indestructible to others conceals her inner fragility.<\/p>\n \n\tMeanwhile, there\u2019s an endearing naivet\u00e9 to Hechinger\u2019s performance. Skinner moves through the world with a cautious eagerness to connect, desperate for the feeling of being acknowledged. His awkward body language and soft gaze exhibit a boyish tenderness, clouded only by the erratic outbursts of his condition. That he\u2019s far from a muscular, disaffected, overtly macho-type \u2014 yet wishes to transform himself into a bodybuilder \u2014 makes for a more convincingly relatable figure. And yet, Skinner\u2019s gentle, unsophisticated demeanor \u2014 which attracts Aishe to him \u2014 also renders him limited in his understanding of her situation. The stakes of her everyday plight escape his worldview.<\/p>\n \n\tThat\u2019s the crossroads they must face. How can she compel him to truly see her? More than once, Aishe looks at Skinner with a rather specific expression, not one of condescension or pity, but charged with a genuine desire to believe that they can build a life together, that their painful present can change. In fact, it\u2019s the potency of her still visage that makes Behtiyar (an Uyghur actress in her first feature) an acting revelation. Behtiyar plays the assertive Aishe as a young woman unwilling to surrender her dignity or dwell on anguish.<\/p>\n \n\tThanks to its terrific stars and Liu\u2019s patient direction, which luxuriates in the smallest of gestures, \u201cPreparation\u201d transcends its most predictable beats, such as Aishe\u2019s encounter with immigration authorities or Skinner\u2019s inevitable, ignorant, final lashing-out episode.<\/p>\n \n\tLate in \u201cPreparation,\u201d Aishe walks into a mosque. There, an Inman speaks to her about how the tribulations and suffering we experience while alive will be rewarded in the hereafter. But the foundation of her defiance lies in trying to mine purpose, and perhaps even joy out of this existence. It\u2019s a sorrowful realization for Aishe that her most invaluable asset is her ability to flee, to readapt, to not become beholden to any place or person in order to survive. <\/p>\n \n\tThus, when the song that first brought her and Skinner together returns as a motif for yearning, one can comprehend that loss is her only constant \u2014 at least in this current life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The spark between two soon-to-be lovers ignites inside a Latin nightclub in New York City, as the pair…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[59559,49,48,75,337,61985],"class_list":{"0":"post-109457","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-bing-liu","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-preparation-for-the-next-life"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}