Writer/Director So Young Shelly Yo makes her feature film debut with the poignant coming-of-age drama, Smoking Tigers. Set in Southern California, Yo tells a tenderly-told story about a high schooler struggling with the pressure to keep it all together. Making its World Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, Smoking Tigers is a touching story that will appeal to anyone who’s ever felt like an outsider. Announced yesterday, Smoking Tigers won Best Performance in a U.S. Narrative Feature (Ji-Young Yoo), Best Screenplay in a U.S. Narrative Feature (So Young Shelly Yo), and the Nora Ephron Award Special Jury Mention.
Hayoung (Ji-young Yoo) is a Korean-American girl who, like most sixteen-year-olds, feels lost. As if starting at a new high school isn’t enough to worry about, her home life proves to be anything but a respite from stress. She constantly plays the mediator between her estranged parents, absorbing their hurt and internalizing it in the process. Her parents are well-meaning but don’t offer her the tangible support she needs during this crucial time. Her mother demands perfection and is quick to enroll Hayoung in summer college prep courses when her mock entrance exam comes back slightly less-than-perfect. Her father, goofy yet slightly removed, tries his best to keep their relationship strong, but sporadic and missed visits don’t make Hayoung feel like she is a priority in his life as much as he is in hers.
The other concern that pollutes Hayoung’s mind is her family’s social status. She comes from a low-income family and is terrified her elite boarding school classmates will find out and won’t give her a chance to reinvent herself. Her anxiety lessens when she befriends a few classmates during summer school, even sparking up a romance with one of the boys, but her concern is never far from the surface. At the end of the day, Hayoung must decide to either let go of her unwarranted shame and live authentically, or risk feeling like an unworthy imposter forever.
Smoking Tigers offers a unique perspective on the continued struggles of multi-ethnic teenage girls. At its core, it has a similar storyline to Everything Everywhere All At Once, despite it taking place in just this single universe. Hayoung and her mother operate from two different schools of thought: traditional versus modern, and have a hard time understanding each other because of their upbringings. The mother-daughter growth through hardship theme is explored heavily here and reaches a satisfying conclusion by the film’s end. Although, her relationship with her father, while it doesn’t lack for sweet moments, unfortunately, feels like a rushed “happily ever after” ending.
The biggest strength of director So Young Shelly Yo is her ability to simultaneously envelop the audience in warmth and grief. We feel Hayoung’s pain in her attempts to be perfect for her school, her friends, her family, and her future. Creative choices in the cinematography, including staging and lighting, visually evoke the film’s core themes. In one scene, Hayoung walks through her empty childhood house. When the scene opens, it’s dark and she’s alone, but the further she walks down the hallway and into the kitchen, the lighting emerges and a familiar family dinner setup appears right in front of her. This dreamlike sequence beautifully encapsulates nostalgia for her childhood and the seemingly perfect life she once had and wishes she could still hold on to.
Smoking Tigers is a slow and simmering watch, and the burden that our protagonist carries throughout is deeply felt. For its heaviness, however, there is a sense of weightlessness in Masayoshi Fujita’s score and Heyjin Jun’s cinematography. The recurring shots of reflections from the pool, glass doors, and other surfaces, act as a cinematic introspection into our main character. The beauty that surrounds Smoking Tigers is evident, and a strong introduction for filmmaker So Young Shelly Yo.
‘Smoking Tigers’ is currently awaiting distribution.
