ClaraDeservedly Sell Out! Movie
https://youtu.be/bX5Jv0Rt9PI
Songs, dark humour, funny characters, obvious jokes, and an uncanny ability to make everyday things seem funny are what Sell Out! has to offer for a full 105 minutes of entertainment.
Sell Out!, Malaysia’s first non-Malay language feature film, is helmed by talented director-writer-producer-composer-editor Yeo Joon Han who kick-starts the multi-award-winning comedy by showcasing himself as a boring artsy director.
The movie, which has won awards such as the Young Cinema Award for Alternative Vision (Venice Film Festival) and NETPAC Award (Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival), contains many handheld and intentionally off-focus shots, and is built around Rafflesia Pong (Jerrica Lai) and Eric Tan (Peter Davis), who are both employees of Fony conglomerate owned by two unscrupulous bosses (Kee Thuan Chye and Lim Teik Leong).
Pong is a competitive host of her own television programme constantly fighting with reality-show host Hannah Edwards Leong (Hannah Lo) for better show ratings, while Tan is an honest inventor with difficulties selling his ultra-durable 8-in-1 soyabean machine concept to his bosses.
Pong soon shoots to fame when her boyfriend dies during an interview with her, resulting in a newly minted reality TV show that sees her interviewing people who are moments away from death. The problem with a premise of like that is finding suitable interviewees on time. Meanwhile, Tan, troubled as he already is, was forced by his employers to visit a medium and have his creative spirit taken out of him, literally. However, the creative spirit refuses to disappear into thin air, and stays earth-bound.
The creative spirit and Tan interact as 2 different entities, and viewers may have to do a double-take to decipher who is which. (Think devil and angel concept.)
Though this concept made things confusing at times, it helped to emphasize one of the bigger topics of the movie: Be realistic or be poor.
Another subject that seemed to stand out more than the others, probably because it looked to be highly reflective of society was one on selfishness. In more than a handful of scenes, characters were often seen placing their own interests first, resulting in their loss of integrity.
Zooming in on the actors behind the characters, Kee, a skilled actor with more than 30 years of experience, and Lim, a lecturer and voice-over professional, stood out for their well-timed comedy, while Lai’s performance was largely realistic. On the flipside, Lo’s performance was not at all memorable, and Davis should have been told that acting requires emotions and expressions.
The movie’s musical element with cheesy lyrics like “I still won’t sleep with you, I’ll rather be bi” and “money, why don’t you like poor people” can be forgiven due to it also being a comedy. Plus, the actors actually sang their own parts and in tune. Nevertheless, the songs could have been shorter. Some initially funny scenes such as the one where 2 aunties were fighting to hail a cab should not have dragged on as their actions became repetitive and thus slightly boring. A couple of slightly amusing lines like “don’t but me” should have also been used sparingly to avoid the subsequent loss of humour.
With the above said, the beauty of Sell Out! is in its ability to turn serious matters like money, art, and life into a zany comedy that speaks of universal truths of the human conscience, ugly or not, so very loudly.
Though Jack Neo’s comedy The Best Bet might pop into mind halfway through the movie, Yeo’s first feature film really does take a different stride by not selling on slapstick humour and unoriginal crude jokes.
All in all, the laughter-inducing movie is easily digestible and mostly enjoyable.
Trailer
https://youtu.be/bX5Jv0Rt9PI
Movie details
Opens: May 7
Duration: 105 min
Language: English, Cantonese (with English and Chinese subtitles)
Rating: PG (Some disturbing images)
Genre: Comedy, Musical
Cast: Jerrica Lai, Peter Davis, Kee Thuan Chye, Hannah Lo
Director: Yeo Joon Han
(Credits: Pictures taken from amokfilms.com and twitchfilm.net)