ReviewStonewalling movie review: best picture winner at 2023 Golden Horse Awards offers a bleak picture of a young, pregnant Chinese woman’s life when all seems against her
- Stonewalling is a stripped-down tale of a woman who is forced to make a series of difficult decisions after discovering she is pregnant
- The film is not always an easy watch, but there can be no denying it is an all too common story in desperate need of being acknowledged and addressed head-on
3/5 stars
Winner of the Best Narrative Feature prize at the 2023 Golden Horse Awards – which is often considered the most prestigious accolade in the Chinese language film industry- Stonewalling is a stripped-down, non-judgemental tale of a 20-year-old woman forced to make a series of difficult decisions after discovering she is pregnant.
Co-directed by Huang Ji and Ryuji Otsuka, it is the duo’s third film to examine the plight of young women in modern China, all of which star actress Yao Honggui as the central protagonist.
At the insistence of her ambitious boyfriend (Liu Long), Lynn (Yao) has enrolled in English classes while studying to be a flight attendant at a trade school in Changsha. She also works a number of low-paying odd jobs, sending what little money she earns back home to her parents, who are themselves stuck in a turbulent, abusive relationship.
Things get worse for Lynn’s parents after a botched operation at their clinic causes a patient to have a miscarriage and demand financial compensation. Lynn considers selling her eggs to a black market fertility clinic, only to fail the medical exam because she is newly pregnant.
Her boyfriend insists that she have an abortion, but instead Lynn moves back in with her parents, opting to carry the baby to term and hand it off to their bereaved patient.