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A Simple Life Movie Review

A Simple Life is a 2011 Hong Kong drama film directed by Ann Hui and starring Andy Lau and Deanie Ip. It’s a simple movie that still works as it’s refreshingly subtle in its approach.

After suffering a stroke, an altruistic maid announces that she wants to quit her job and move into an old people’s home. What happens then is the beginning of a wonderful mother-son relationship between the maid and the man for whom she has been working for years. There are many movies about a similar subject in Asian cinema that is dominated by these maid storylines, so this movie was far from original for sure.

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Still, execution matters. The film being so well realized across the board did wonders to elevate its admittedly simplistic story to greater heights. For one, for a film that is about this potentially overly emotional storyline, it never goes overboard in its emotion, but quite the opposite is the case – this is a refreshingly subtle, far from manipulative, realistic drama that deserves praise for its grounded take on this story.

Andy Lau and Deanie Ip both excelled at playing the two main characters. The film is basically their movie with other people only appearing in smaller bits and pieces. The two are fantastic, especially Ip, but Lau is also commendable. I loved their sweet, but grounded dynamic, and the film’s lack of dialogue helped it more than it hurt it as the attention to detail in non-vocal expressions was praise-worthy.

A Simple Life does have one major flaw, though, and that is its overlong runtime. For such a simple story, two hours of length was simply needlessly excessive. I do not understand why the director decided to do this as it made the movie very long, boring in stretches and uneventful as it’s basically a slice-of-life tale that should have been shorter. Still, Ann Hui’s work is pretty good here, the movie looks fine and the editing was particularly strong, though obviously the pacing was problematic stemming from its long runtime.

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A Simple Life is a refreshingly subtle and far from emotionally manipulative Hong Kong drama that is particularly worth seeing for two phenomenal turns from Andy Lay and Deanie Ip in the main roles. The film’s grounded approach is commendable, but the excessive length was unnecessary for such a simple story at its core. That choice hurt what otherwise would have been an incredible film.

My Rating – 4