Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Ekwa Msangi
Starring: Ntare Mwine, Zainab Jah, Jayme Lawson, Nana Mensah
Remember Hugh grant's cheesy but not entirely untrue monologue in
Love Actually about how an airport arrivals lounge is the one
place you can find humans expressing unfiltered, unbridled love? Few events
are as emotionally provocative as a reunion between those who have been
separated for a lengthy period, but what if the parties concerned have
changed so much during their separation that they now barely resemble the
absent family members they've been pining for?
That's the question posed by writer/director Ekwa Msangi in her
beautifully played feature debut Farewell Amor. As with the aforementioned British rom-com, Msangi's film opens with an
airport reunion as Angolan refugee turned New York cabbie Walter (Ntare Mwine) is reunited with his wife Esther (Zainab Jah)
and daughter Sylvia (Jayme Lawson) after 17 long years. When
civil war broke out in their country, Walter left for the US as Esther and
the then newborn Sylvia were relocated to Tanzania while awaiting permission
to join Walter in his new home in the Big Apple.
While the three are happy to be reacquainted, the reunion doesn't go
smoothly. In the intervening years, Walter had fallen in love with a
nurse, Linda (Nana Mensah), and was forced to end their
relationship upon learning of his wife's imminent arrival. During her time
in Tanzania, Esther has found religion (it's suggested that she and Sylvia
were taken care of by a church that she now feels indebted to), something
Walter struggles to comprehend, particularly when he discovers she plans to
wire her savings back to the church. Sylvia simply misses her friends back
home, and feels awkward in the presence of the father she only knows from
phone calls.
Recent immigrant dramas have tended to focus on the struggles of their
newly arrived protagonists to fit in with the society they now found
themselves living on the fringes of. Farewell Amor eschews
this dynamic, painting New York in a largely positive light, its natives
going out of their way to welcome Esther and Sylvia. A confident neighbour
of Walter's takes the shy Esther under her wing, showing her where to get
the best food in the neighbourhood and giving her a fashion makeover, while
a classmate of Sylvia encourages her to enter a dance competition, something
her conservative mother disapproves of. The conflict isn't between
Farewell Amor's immigrants and the rock they've landed on, but rather among the family
members themselves.
The three central performances are quietly heart-rending. Walter, Esther
and Sylvia speak softly and walk around their adopted city with their eyes
lowered, hoping not to be noticed. They've seen humanity at its worst and
are understandably suspicious of any human attention. All three are scared
of causing offence to differing parties. As a black man with an accent,
Walter is careful not to offend white New Yorkers. Sylvia keeps her dance
rehearsals a secret from her disapproving mother. Esther seems terrified of
offending her God.
Farewell Amor is a tender New York drama in the vein of the
films of Ira Sachs. Voices are never raised, and there are no "Oscar speech"
moments. Instead we get three people dancing, both literally and
metaphorically, around their inability to confront the difficulties of
slotting back into being a family once again. In many ways it feels like a
lighter companion to another of 2020's best films, Sean Durkin's
The Nest, and both movies end with almost identical scenes set at breakfast tables.
Despite their troubles, we're left feeling that Walter, Esther and Sylvia
will be alright in their new life in New York. If they can make it there,
they'll make it anywhere.
