ELIZABETH LO | CHINA, USA | 2024 | 94 MIN | CHINESE
Rarely has a filmmaker gained such unprecedented access to the inner workings of a romantic entanglement as in Elizabeth Lo’s fantastically engrossing documentary, which follows a wife, her husband, his mistress, and a professional meddler employed to interrupt the extramarital dalliance. Lo shines a fascinating light on the modern Chinese phenomenon of mistress dispellers: hired experts at reining in cheating husbands through very unconventional means. Enlisted by a middle-aged professor who suspects that her husband of many years is seeing a younger woman, mistress dispeller Wang Zhenxi engages in a series of amusingly elaborate cons to infiltrate the relationship, often adopting false identities to gain the confidence of her marks. Through long, often uninterrupted sequences of emotionally charged dialogue, Lo allows the viewer to act as a fly on the wall amid shockingly intimate conversations. Revealing but never voyeuristic, the film treats each participant in this romantic roundelay with respect, forcing viewers to reconsider their own preconceptions about marriage, independence, and intimacy.
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