See You Off to the Edge of Town (2002)
If you think a road trip with your
family is annoying as hell, you out to ride along
with the Kwans. They're really annoying. But hey,
you don't have to call 'em up and try and hitch, just
check out "See You Off to the Edge of Town," one of
the most annoying, elongated and mish-mashed films
in the Asian-America genre.
Nothing here makes much sense, especially
to us stupid Americans. I think some things get lost
in the translation. But the main thing we can not
deny, as stupid and consumerist as we are, the Kwans,
especially Mama, are fucking disagreeable. Why anyone
would want to take a road trip with them for several
days, let alone the 86 minutes it takes this bothersome
film to unspool, is anyone's guess. Hey, at least
one of the sisters in the film brings along her hottie
Indonesian, punk boyfriend.
This film isn't horrible, really
it isn't, but it's close. And it's all so familiar.
We've seen this story about a zillion times. And the
mother character here is just a nuisance and a bitch.
There is nothing to like in her. And when filmmaker
Ching C Ip, who also scripted here, finally does give
her a reason to be so disagreeable, it's too late.
We hate her and we want to dump her on the curbside.
There's lots of typical screenwriter's
stuff in here including the idea that the family is
traveling to the Grand Canyon. I think somewhere in
the middle of filming someone pointed out to Ip that
the ending written in his/her script, where the family
goes to the Grand Canyon and stands looking in awe
at the majesty of it all, was already done in Lawrence
Kasdan's "Grand Canyon." So, instead, we never see
the Grand Canyon in the film. The film ends poetically
on the road, then goes on a little more, then end
poetically again in an airport, then has a tacked
on shot that makes no sense. I don't get the last
shot of the film.
Of course, I didn't get the shot
which was a huge gap in continuity in the middle of
the film either. See, we always recognize the Kwan's
car because, early in the trip, they stop at a typical
American yard sale and by a Bar-B-Q pit. They strap
it to the top of their car and then the car breaks
down. That's when one of the daughters calls her boyfriend
who drives a big blue hearse converted into a party
vehicle, and he comes and they continue the journey
in his car. They tie the Bar-B-Q pit to the top of
his car. But long after they are on the road in his
car, there's a shot in the film, out of nowhere, of
the first car travelling down the road with the pit
on top. It's a huge error and pretty much lets you
know the film is the work of an amateur.
There are some nice characters here.
The father of the family is really wonderful and his
quiet, seeming solitude often reminded me of my father.
A scene where he goes into a small neighborhood bar
while the family rests at a local motel, is quite
nice. And the father's scene with the boyfriend is
also charming. But the mother constantly bitching
throughout the film makes it lose any charm it might
have attained. And the final reel entry of a crazy
old coot character in the middle of Podunk is horrible.
The actor who plays the old goat is just awful and
his scenes with the mother are not poetic at all,
they are pretentious and contrived. It's all so ho-hum.
"See You Off to the Edge of Town"
is an unfocused, lackluster and irritating mess. There's
not an original idea in it. And the loud jangly Asian
pop music used throughout the film, at full volume,
is just as annoying as the mom, if not moreso.
