Review | A Trip with Your Wife movie review: More Than Blue director returns with another baffling romance drama
- Everything about this movie is absurd and excruciating, even the characters have no redeeming features
- Director Gavin Lin fails to tick any boxes with this story, and the twist at the end is just as pointless
1/5 stars
For someone who has dedicated his career to charting the course of love, Taiwanese writer-director Gavin Lin Hsiao-chien has a pretty baffling notion of romance.
His previous film, More Than Blue , saw a cancer patient hide his illness from his significant other and find her a husband so as not to hurt her feelings. Lin’s latest offering, A Trip with Your Wife, is another adaptation of an earlier Korean work, whose portrayal of true love – or just acceptable human behaviour – is equally askew.
Cheng (Bryan Chang Shu-hao) is an awful human being. After marrying his college sweetheart, Xiaoya (Michelle Chen Yan-hsi), he has spent the past decade desperately trying to get his business off the ground. But when faced with bankruptcy, he sells off his wife’s bakery without her permission. Understandably furious, Xiaoya files for divorce, but at that moment Ah Zhi (Rhydian Vaughan) re-enters their lives.
In college, Ah Zhi and Cheng were inseparable, and despite both having feelings for Xiaoya, Ah Zhi graciously aided Cheng in his efforts to woo her; Xiaoya’s feelings on the matter are not addressed, she is merely a trophy to be fought over and won.