{"id":672152,"date":"2026-05-15T22:59:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T22:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/672152\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T22:59:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T22:59:11","slug":"silent-friend-review-a-gingko-with-a-mind-of-its-own-charms-tony-leung","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/672152\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Silent Friend’ review: A gingko with a mind of its own charms Tony Leung"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s not merely trendy psychologizing to salute the qualities of a sturdy tree: a humbling reminder of time\u2019s immensity, but also a living embodiment of shelter, change and growth. Leave it, then, to a massive gingko on the grounds of a medieval German town\u2019s college to cosmically center the three-pronged, multi-generational character study \u201cSilent Friend\u201d from Hungarian filmmaker Ildik\u00f3 Enyedi<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Enyedi, from her mesmeric, calling-card period lark \u201cMy Twentieth Century\u201d to the eccentric love story \u201cOn Body and Soul,\u201d has always been preoccupied with that realm in which the everyday meets the all-seeing and possibility is awakened. So it shouldn\u2019t surprise anyone that she\u2019d give a starring role to a 200-year-old tree, which just may inspire the needed answers. And why not? Our living, \u201cbreathing,\u201d sky-reaching neighbors have considerable communication skills with each other.<\/p>\n

Our entryway is a modern day neuroscientist played by Tony Leung Chiu-wai (and called Tony), who arrives at the University of Marburg as a visiting professor ready to further his groundbreaking research into the mysteries of infant brain development. The gig becomes a lonely endeavor, however, when the pandemic hits and he\u2019s confined to a depopulated campus, sent unwillingly into a kind of monkhood.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s as if the nearby natural world, photographed by Gergely P\u00e1los and edited by K\u00e1roly Szalai, was just waiting for such a solitary moment to draw Tony\u2019s undivided attention into the prospect of green intelligence.<\/p>\n

In tandem, Enyedi transports us to 1908 to meet aspiring botanist Grete (Luna Wedler), the university\u2019s first female student, subjected to cruelly patronizing treatment by smug male elders, yet driven to see plants anew when introduced to the light-capturing rigor of photography. The movie\u2019s third woven-in protagonist is a wide-eyed, resourceful farm boy, Hannes (Enzo Brumm), in 1972. While his fellow students spark to the winds of political change and sexual freedom, he becomes fixated on what a lone geranium, imaginatively monitored on its windowsill, might have to convey if given the chance.<\/p>\n

The fluid, idiosyncratic charm of \u201cSilent Friend\u201d \u2014 which never feels like two and a half hours \u2014 is in Enyedi\u2019s heartfelt belief that curiosity is simply a garden that grows progress. It doesn\u2019t hurt, of course, that this veteran dreamweaver\u2019s key cast are entrancing, inviting specimens themselves, led by an inner glow of compassion in Leung that feels like its own natural energy source. When his character contacts L\u00e9a Seydoux<\/a>\u2019s French plant expert, it becomes almost too much rapturously intelligent star wattage for one quietly poetic movie, even if these god-tier actors are just zooming and talking shop.<\/p>\n

Hardly anything is overdone here and, in one essential way, Enyedi is also making the case for movies themselves as phenomena to protect and treasure: ecosystems of light, texture, wonder and nourishment. Visually, the film toggles between intimate 35mm black-and-white, grainy 16mm color and multi-purpose digital cameras that visually represent distinct eras. Needless to say, that gingko tree is sublime and majestic in all of them.<\/p>\n

‘Silent Friend’<\/p>\n

In German and English, with subtitles<\/p>\n

Not rated<\/p>\n

Running time: 2 hours, 27 minutes<\/p>\n

Playing: Opens Friday, May 15 at Laemmle Royal and AMC Burbank Town Center 8<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not merely trendy psychologizing to salute the qualities of a sturdy tree: a humbling reminder of time\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,14954,75,247441,247442,247444,247446,247445,14830,337,208,122564,68018,7479,1695,23480,247443,4139],"class_list":["post-672152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-change","tag-entertainment","tag-enyedi","tag-gingko","tag-green-intelligence","tag-heartfelt-belief","tag-infant-brain-development","tag-movie","tag-movies","tag-review","tag-shelter","tag-silent-friend","tag-time","tag-tony","tag-tree","tag-undivided-attention","tag-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672152","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=672152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}