Dear Orange (2020)

A movie that refuses to comfort

I would start with a few warnings. First, this is a film for a mature audience. Second, it contains morally ambiguous, even disturbing, sexual scenes and situations that may put some viewers off. Finally, I think it’s important to look into the tags before watching it.

Mei is many things at once: a mother, a daughter, a caregiver the one who holds everything together. She moves from one burden to another ; a job slipping away from her, a son living with a disability, a mother slowly fading into dementia, and an ex-husband who is falling apart. Her life feels dense, almost airless. There is no space where the weight lifts. Nothing is spared.

I thought I would be drawn into a story that invites empathy, something that gently pulls at emotion. But Dear Orange goes in a different direction. It doesn't try to soften itself, nor does it offer the viewer a safe distance from which to judge. I couldn't step into Mei’s place, nor could I measure her choices. What it presents is something raw, closed, without exit, no space for “what would I do?”

What stands out is the complete lack of relief in the story. The story doesn't breathe. We see what she endures, what she carries, what she accepts. And instead of anger, something quieter settles in: the recognition of a life that presses down. It feels almost deliberate, this refusal of comfort as if the film denies us even the smallest consolation.

Slowly, it becomes clear that this is not only a story of suffering. It is the portrait of a woman who has made room for inevitability, who has absorbed it into herself. And perhaps it is within that acceptance, troubling, difficult to face, that the film finds its true meaning.

The ending stayed with me deeply. Looking back, I feel that Mei may have experienced a kind of happiness, fragile, almost invisible without ever truly realizing it.

A harsh, disturbing film, in the same vein as The Child of Light.

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