A Picture of You (2013)
1 hr 23 min


I was going through Amazon Prime looking for a movie to take my mind off "things" and came across this film.

This movie is a hidden gem. While seemingly contradictory, this is a funny film about a death. However, there is nothing morbid or depressing about this story. It has intelligent conversation and even an action scene done in a very believable way. The actors were expert in portraying quirky, interesting characters that I would actually want to meet in reality.  The 4 main characters (Jo Mai as Jen, Andrew Pang as Kyle, Teyonah Parris as Mika and Lucas Dixon as Doug) made me forget they were acting,  The standout was Andrew Pang who portrayed anger, bemusement and even being in an altered state, all equally well. As Andrew Pang's ancestry is Korean and Jo Mai is of  Chinese descent, I was taken out of the film (mother was of Chinese descent). It was only for the first few minutes and that is on me. We never were introduced to the identity of the father, so who knows? The movie starts slowly, as the 2 main characters estranged siblings Jen and Kyle, come to learn an interesting aspect of their late mother's life. I laughed many times. The cinematography was beautiful with many non-CGI'd outdoor scenes. A few of the scene transitions were a bit abrupt, as though there was some cut lines of dialogue. However every individual scene of this film was so good,  that those editorial decisions never bothered me for long. The soundtrack was at times subtle and at times on the nose, but was never out of place. This movie has character arcs, humor, adventure and a satisfying conclusion. Plus due to this film, I have learned to appreciate a very old, previous very ordinary children's song in an entirely new light.