Popular reviews

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  Review by Renee ★★★★★ 5

  Visually beautiful and unassuming. Pauses rich with meaning. People in and with their homes should be a genre of its own. I'm thinking of A Ghost Story, Ocean Waves, Reply 1988, prose by Luna Sicat-Cleto and Katrina Tuvera, but I'm sure there's more. Speaking of Tuvera, one specific essay, Old Home, came to mind as I was watching this movie. She writes at the end:

  "Ten, twenty years ago, this house had its share of ceremony. Tables were set, walls scrubbed, furniture moved around to make way for friends come to celebrate a child’s graduation or the father’s birthday. Today the children are married, the father is six months dead, and some friends turned out to be not friends after…

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  Review by oppie ★★★★ 4

  i never knew before that cleaning up your house could be this frikin sad

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  Review by Terence Ang 洪偉凱 ★★★★

  "Garbage bags are like black holes. When you throw things in, they're gone. Out of sight, out of mind. It's so damn easy. It's a done deal."

  But can we really let go of the things the define us tho?

  < Ang Ranking: Best International Feature Film submissions to the 93rd Academy Awards >

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  Review by Kim ★★★★½ 5

  13 months ago, my best friend and i fought. i swore to never speak to her again, and promised to return everything she gave me. so i collected everything -the milk plus facial foam, a keychain from benguet, a bookmark from malaysia, a keychain from thailand- all in a purse that was also from her.

  13 months ago, i wouldve burned them all to pieces. but just last month, i found a reason to still keep them.

  i guess, what i learned from this movie was, its much harder to let go of things when we cant let go of the people attached to them. we can return the photo but never the smile. we can return a gift but…

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  Review by Ⓢⓒⓘ-Ⓕⓘ Ⓦⓐⓢⓐⓑⓘ🍥 ★★★★ 16

  Thai film about a woman decluttering junk and realizing that a lot of it comes attached with unresolved memories from all those that once occupied her world.
  Refreshing her life takes an unexpected, exhausting emotional toll that she's forced to deal with, before she can completely disgard everything and move on.

  I think a lot of us can relate when we're clearing out stuff we haven't seen in ages; handling each long forgotten item sends a flood of buried memories our way. Sometimes enough to make us drown.
  I generally hold on to personal letters or cards that people actually took the effort to write in (and not just sign on behalf of Hallmark). And old photos of course (back…

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  Review by Yudi ★★★★½

  It's almost painful to watch how real it is.

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  Review by nori ★★★★ 2

  putangina magtatapon lang ng basura bat ansakit sakit. kasalanan to ni marie kondo.

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  Review by holli ★★★★

  a cinematic therapy session about confronting your past and learning to deal with the experiences, people, and mistakes that have shaped you instead of throwing them away. a gentle, beautiful piece of work. nawapol thamrongrattanarit is a truly special voice.

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  Review by bell 🍂 ★★★★

  1. Set your goals and find inspirations.
  2. Don’t reminisce the past.
  3. Don’t feel too much.
  4. Don’t waver. Be heartless.
  5. Don’t add more things.
  6. Don’t look back.

  As told by Jean, those are six steps to declutter everything. Including someone.

  As someone who finds it hard to throw things away, especially those who have a lot of memories, I was surprised to see Jean who is the hardcore version of Marie Kondo.

  It’s all fun and games until Jean finally meats Aim again and her world shatters once more.
  (A/N: JELAS AJA JEAN JADI WAVERING SOALNYA TATAPAN SUNNY TERLALU BIKIN MELELEH!!!)

  In conclusion, letting go is never easy... after all.

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  Review by yosephine ★★★★

  someone pls change the title to 'everybody is unhappy in this movie'

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  Review by Raya ★★★★★

  This forced me to confront my past like Jean and made me realize how many Aims I wronged. This film is a two-hour therapy session. Don't prepare tissues. Prepare to eat your pride and embrace the pain with open arms.

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  Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★★½ 2

  You can also read this review at Cineflix Daily.

  Happy Old Year is an impressive Thai film rich in themes on how to live life. It deals with the clutter we acquire and the process needed to clear up our lives. At its centre is a story of a woman attempting to improve her house, and from there comes something deeper about bettering herself.

  Director Nawapol Thamrongrattanaritt is a real talent. His anthology film Die Tomorrow remains an underseen gem of recent cinema. In Happy Old Year his stylish design is impeccable. The unusual aspect ratio confines and minimises the screen. The cinematography is absolutely amazing, with many stunning shots. The use of alternating focus is very cool and conveys…