Bing Liu ascribed a refreshingly unsentimental energy to the coming-of-age genre in his Oscar-nominated documentary, Minding the Gap. For his debut narrative feature, Preparation for the Next Life, Liu has adopted a similar philosophy, combining a cinematic eye with a ruthless approach to character building that is unafraid to force the audience to wade in their ugliness, and an appreciation for the halting attempts troubled people make to improve their lives. Based on the Atticus Lish novel of the same name, and adapted by Martyna Majok, Preparation follows Aishe, an Uyghur woman who has recently immigrated to the U.S., and Skinner, a three-tour veteran living on the streets, as they fall in and out of love and face the intrusions of their own personal baggage.
Liu crafts the film as a two-hander to emphasize the isolation borne out of economic desperation and marginal existence, though Aishe (played by newcomer Sebiye Behtiyar) and Skinner’s (Fred Hechinger) isolation is both self-imposed and circumstantial. A lone wolf possessed of a machine-like determination to survive, Aishe has ruled out all notions of socialization, which she describes in voiceover addressed to her dead father. She’s undeterred by the discrimination shown to her by her Chinese bosses and co-workers, and instead pursues her less-than-by-the-books employment in Chinatown’s kitchens with an unrelenting drive. She has no idea her plans are in danger when one day she locks eyes with Skinner, who has recently arrived in the city with nowhere to live.
Skinner upends the traditional expectations of an American/immigrant pairing. A country boy, Skinner has never set foot in New York City and follows the hardened, city-wise Aishe like an eager puppy. Liu’s cinematic instincts never attempt to dampen the romantic spark between Aishe and Skinner, and are at their most potent in the film’s free-wheeling first act, where the harshness of Chinatown’s underbelly is softened by the lovely blue and purple lights of a Latin club and the laid-back vibes of a food truck. Skinner challenges Aishe to a drink-off during their first night out, just as he tried to show off his athletic prowess earlier in a warehouse behind her work. Both attempts to best Aishe are failures, but Skinner is just happy to have a companion — as so, seemingly, is Aishe.
There is a visual grandeur and emotional breadth to Preparation that warrants big screen appointment. Aishe and Skinner’s early conversations, particularly their first “date” at the club, largely eschew the spoken word — despite Aishe’s near-perfect English, a fact that complicates our understanding of just how long she’s been in America, a question that’s never answered — and instead take pleasure in spanning lush chasms of silent gazing. This faith in silence and duration makes it a shame that Preparation is likely to be watched more often at home on a TV or laptop than in the cinema. Liu and editor Anne McCabe certainly had the latter medium in mind; they pace most of the film with a dutiful patience that might distract those couch-bound among their audience.
As Aishe and Skinner’s relationship becomes more serious — a late-night trip to a motel and passionate, though visually chaste, lovemaking turns to deep conversations about life the next morning — so, too, does the reality of Aishe’s immigration status. She was brought to the U.S. in the back of a truck and has no ID. Talks of marriage come up, a trip to City Hall; the latter never comes to fruition, and in the meantime, Aishe is snatched from the streets by ICE agents and taken to jail. Skinner’s own problems with untreated PTSD start to surface with more frequency and intensity. A drunken escapade that begins at a local bar and ends in a fight in Times Square suggests Skinner has a well of unresolved, even unacknowledged, issues with which to contend. Despite a dwindling supply of prescription meds and no benefits from the army, he sleeps all day, doesn’t work; an outlandish desire to become a bodybuilder is seemingly the only conscious manifestation of a self-improvement mindset.
It’s easy to pinpoint Liu’s interest in how far extreme individualism can take one person, but it’s just as clear he isn’t prepared to confront them at any level below this particular story. Liu leans into the idea that physical strength is a manifestation of self-reliance, and turns it into a major thematic strain throughout Preparation. Aishe’s father was a soldier and taught her everything she knows about the importance of a strong body as a means for self-reliance in all aspects of life. She runs every day, lifts as much as any man (at the gym and at her job). She doubled down on her fitness and maniacal sense of self-reliance when she was in jail. Aishe’s clinical efficiency is at odds with Skinner’s tragic chaos, and Liu clearly draws out that powerful contrast in an urban setting that appears devoid of any natural avenue for community. Skinner might have a drinking buddy or two, and Aishe finds one co-worker with words of advice, but this is a story about moving through life alone, at whatever cost. Whatever liberatory hope Liu tries to append to the film’s conclusion — Aishe now works on a farm somewhere in middle America, with wide open roads instead of crowded sidewalks on which to run — has a conspicuously empty ring.
DIRECTOR: Bing Liu; CAST: Sebiye Behtiyar, Fred Hechinger, Dralla Aierken, Jessica Ma; DISTRIBUTOR: Amazon MGM Studios; IN THEATERS: September 5; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 55 min.
Comments are closed.