Review | Venice 2025: Silent Friend movie review – Tony Leung Chiu-wai stars in botanical drama
The Hong Kong star of In the Mood for Love and Lust, Caution plays a scientist in one section of Ildiko Enyedi’s three-part botanical film
3/5 stars
Typical of the film’s idiosyncrasies, the end credits to Silent Friend, which is being unveiled in competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival, list the names of every plant that features in a triptych of tales that span almost 100 years, all set around a university campus in a medieval German town.
In Leung’s segment, the year is 2020, at the height of Covid. He plays Dr Tony Wong, a neuroscientist from Hong Kong who has devoted his life to studying how babies perceive the world.
Bent out of shape by the isolation caused by lockdown, his character becomes drawn to running tests on a magnificent ginkgo tree that stands tall in a nearby botanical garden. “Scientific experiments can be weird sometimes,” he remarks, a comment that could just as easily apply to this art house curio.