Last week on Criterion, I watched a 2024 Hong Kong film titled All Shall Be Well, written and directed by Ray Yeung. The film focuses on Angie (Patra Au) and Pat (Maggie Li Lin Lin), a happy and affluent lesbian couple in their sixties, who have been together for forty years and living together for thirty years. They aren't legally married, but Angie has always been known as "Aunt Angie" to Pat's extended family, who have been loving and accepting of their relationship.
But tragically, Pat suddenly dies, and as Angie didn't co-own their apartment and wasn't married to Pat, her legal rights as her long-term partner are in jeopardy, as control of Pat's estate go to her brother, whose family have been poor and rely on a fortune teller to help improve their luck and finances. Then, Pat's brother and his family start showing that their "allyship" to Angie and Pat was only surface-level, as they ignore Angie's wishes about how Pat wanted her ashes spread at sea, to having control of her apartment and deciding whether to let Pat still live in her home she's been in for three decades, and essentially now treating her as if she doesn't count as family because she and Pat weren't married.
Angie has her own friend group of lesbians, including one who is a lawyer and works to advocate for Angie's right as Pat's partner. It's a great film, but so frustrating to watch because the film depicts a reality that queer people have faced, when their partner dies and their partner's heterosexual family takes over and has the legal right to kick their partner out of their home, or treat them as if they were just their "roommate" and not their long-term romantic partner. People in the LGBTQ community fought for civil rights for decades, including having the same legal rights as heterosexual married couples, when it comes to estate laws and housing and receiving benefits and inheritances. The nationwide law that passed for same-sex marriage was only just ten years ago, following a few states that allowed it, and there have been more legal rights for same-sex married couples, which is a great improvement. So it makes it so sad to watch a movie where a family, who seem like allies, are quick to be dismissive of their loved one's partner when it's convenient for them, and control the estate and do what they want instead of what the deceased person would have wanted.
And Angie, through encountering the waning kindness of Pat's family, is also grieving the loss of essentially her spouse of forty years, feeling lost without her, and being in her sixties and not knowing what to do. They didn't make legal preparations because they didn't want to think about death, and just lived in the moment. Their scenes together early in the movie are sweet, like when they shop together at a street market stall where they are friendly with the shop owners, and there's a lot of familiarity and warmth with them. Only with her found family is she able to find some kinship with fellow queer women who can understand her loss much more than anyone else can.
Despite the film leaving me emotionally gutted at the end, I really liked it a lot, and thought Patra Au was fantastic in the film, bringing a lot of lived experience where one could feel the years of her history as Angie with Pat, and she and Maggie Li Lin Lin had a lot of sweet chemistry in their few scenes together. I highly recommend this film, but know that the actions of Pat's family in the film may leave you feeling pissed off in the end.
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