Parents' Guide to Left-Handed Girl

There's something compelling about this film, despite lots of it not being particularly fun to watch. Without much of an actual story, Left-Handed Girl follows Shu-Fen and her two daughters as they try to start a new life without their absent father. Variously following each of these three main characters allows for and provides deeper character studies, even if the title of the movie implies that I-Jing (the left-handed girl) will be the focus. Instead, each generation of the family gets a fair amount of singular focus. And given the premise of the story, this structure seems to suggest that this kind of life forces these women and young girl to live difficult and isolated lives. But there's a clear criticism of patriarchy and society and culture not supporting women who get betrayed by men.

For some audiences, a big problem of this film will be that large portions aren't exactly fun to watch. The realist tone of the film harkens back to literary realism (Balzac) and naturalism (Zola), but like that literature, this film isn't exactly pleasant. It depicts struggle and sexism but without suggesting also that there are ways to fight back. Further, given that there isn't much of a story, by the end, many viewers might feel anywhere from a little let down to outright offended, with reactions like: "What was the point of that? Life is unfair and men will deceive and there's nothing you can do about it?" But there's also an argument that this film has to look like this in order to successfully critique these unfair power structures and regimes that oppress women and single-mother families.