The film (and hence the play) revolves
around Eric, a social worker who visits his childhood caretaker, Habiba, at her
flat after not seeing her for nearly twenty years. He brings with him a dark
secret that has burdened him those past two decades.
I remember the theatre piece as an incisive
and uncompromising examination of paedophilia that boldly confronted the topic
without so much as flinching. But the play doesn’t just concern itself with
paedophilia. Looking back now, I realize how prescient it was of all the Issues
of the Day, arguments that have gripped our culture and media with a fury.
Issues debated hotly by activists and journalists, such as: the nature of the
victim, and whether the “victim” may be somehow complicit in the “abuse”; the
dynamics of the abuser-victim relationship, and who truly wields the power; and
the causation of homosexuality – does childhood trauma or abuse have to play in
the development of such an orientation?
What made the 2006 production so memorable,
though, wasn’t just its script’s smart and subtle exploration of those topics.
Rather, two powerful performances by Chua En Lai and Aidli “Alin” Mosbit,
breathed life into the production and grounded the play’s rigorous examination
of these issues with a warmth and humaneness. Fortunately, the performances by
the film’s actors are similarly solid.
For the most part, the script for Tan Bee
Thiam and Lei Yuan Bin’s adaptation hews closely to the stage version. They have trimmed the original script to fit a
lean 60-minute running time, but have mostly kept the essentials and nuances
intact. But whether or not Fundamentally
Happy is a loyal adaption is not the chief concern – but whether or not it
works as a film.
Even while Tan and Lei have kept the
script largely the same, their chamber drama does carry some unique qualities
of its own. The film’s claustrophobic setting – far less pronounced in the
stage production if I recall correctly, owning to the endless movements on set
– aptly hints at the psychological cage the two characters have built around
themselves: Eric with his unrequited pining for his uncle Ismail, and his
reluctance to forget and move on; Habiba with her inability to leave her
husband despite full knowledge of his paedophilic crimes.
The film is a meditative product, concerned
with pondering the truths of its characters’ words by constantly fixing its
gaze on their faces. Tan and Lei’s adaptation is less invested in the
“argument”, with who’s right or wrong than the stage version. Even in many of Eric
and Habiba’s more heated exchanges, the directors seldom fit both characters
into the same frame, choosing only to show one character at a time and
capturing their faces. The charged air
of tension, so palpable in the stage production, is punctured, and the spirit of contention that animates the
stage production is kept tightly lidded here. As a result, the film is far less a war
of wiles and struggle for one-upmanship than it is an attempt to peer into the
hearts and minds of its protagonists.
But the film’s static quality does rob it
of some suspense, and here the twists felt a lot less startling and impactful.
Where once I was almost gasping at the controversial developments in the play,
here I simply waved it off. Perhaps it’s because of an awareness of what’s
going to happen this time round, or perhaps these revelations, once wielded by
the characters as ways to gain leverage over the other, lose so much of their
shock factor when the film adaptation no longer feels like a drawn-out verbal
sparring session.
The stage production’s muscle-clenching tension
(I kept thinking, “who the heck is going to win this battle of wiles?”) isn’t
just for excitement. It also helps to accentuate the political and social dimensions
of the play. The personal is blatantly political in the play, and the
characters serve as avatars for the various sides of the culture wars they fall
under. (Eric represents social justice, and hence social upheaval; Habiba, mercy,
and the status quo; Eric stands for a progressive view, Habiba a slightly more
conservative one; Eric, with his victim to survivor to social justice advocate
life trajectory, can be seen as a symbol of a certain type of feminism; Habiba,
with her staunch defense of a monstrous oppressor, can be seen as the opposite
of feminism.)
Tan and Lei’s work tries to
dial down its stage progenitor’s overt invocation of the social and political, but it is still completely aware of those dimensions. The directors use a more
languid and contemplative style that invites us to study and empathise with the
characters, instead of scrutinizing their arguments and trying to determine a
victor. It employs a decidedly more reconciliatory approach in handling those touchy
topics.
Even though the film does has its flaws - excessive staginess, for example - it would be unwise to judge the film
against the strengths of the theatre version, of which there are many. Both
versions fulfill different purposes: the theatre production, the firebrand,
serves as a conversation starter, and the film, the olive branch, works as a
call to reconciliation, compromise, and empathy – fitting, considering the contentious environment that surrounds our cultural landscape.
Review by Raymond Tan
Review by Raymond Tan