Metrograph

Journalist Vân fights corruption while caught in a love triangle between her husband Đông, who runs a shady enterprise, and Phương, a Ministry inspector and her former high school crush. Director Trần Phương—who studied in the inaugural class of the People’s School of the Performing Arts and acted in revolutionary films before turning to directing—uses their tangled relationships to capture 1980s Hanoi caught between certainties. Existential and impressionistic, the film presents idealistic love as the last hope against greed and disillusionment in a rapidly modernizing Vietnam.” —Minh Nguyen