Review: Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son

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Review: Children of Invention

Powerfully moving and rigorously intelligent

By PETER KEOUGH | April 15, 2009

3.0 Stars

VIDEO: The trailer for Children of Invention

Another independent film about the economically marginalized and dispossessed, Tze Chun's locally shot portrait of a downwardly mobile single mom is both powerfully moving and rigorously intelligent. With her husband back in Hong Kong and nobody around willing or able to help her, Elaine (Cindy Cheung) resorts to get-rich schemes to support herself and her two children. When she winds up a scam (reminiscent of the one in Great World of Sound, from last year's festival) that involves her in victimizing poor people like herself, her two resourceful kids (the terrific Michael Chen and Crystal Chiu) launch an entrepreneurial plan of their own. Chun's is an eloquent and restrained study of the fine line between respectability and desperation.

SOMERVILLE THEATRE: APRIL 24 at 7:30 PM | WITH DIRECTOR TZE CHUN

Topics: Reviews , Independent film Festival of Boston, IFFB, IFFB 2009, More

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