Lucky Girl
2019 · 11m · USA
Directed by Sidi Wang
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
On her 'Gotcha Day' adoption anniversary, 9-year-old Esther, a Chinese adoptee, navigates a swirl of identity questions when her white American family takes her to a strip-mall Chinese buffet and she meets her new Chinese-American neighbors.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone wants to canonize this as the 'authentic' adoption story, but Wang's real subversion is stuffing all that weight into a fluorescent buffet where nothing feels authentic—and refusing to resolve it. The film doesn't earn easy catharsis, which is why it actually means something.
Wang situates this in the lineage of intimate family portraiture (Chloé Zhao, the Safdie brothers' quieter moments) while engaging seriously with the formal problem of how to render internal dissonance through space and glance—the buffet becomes a deliberate formal choice, not mere setting.
The genius move is the sound design in those moments when Esther goes still: the buffet's ambient chatter doesn't soften or underscore, it just *continues*, and that refusal to manipulate the audio landscape is what makes her silence land. One decision, perfect.
Reviews
A beautiful story that feels very intimate. There's some great technique in here that keeps the story very personal.
Interesting film about clashing identities, though I wish the protagonist had more dialogue.
Festivals
- National Film Festival for Talented Youth 2019, Audience Award; New Talent Award
- San Diego Asian Film Festival 2019