A treat for mothers
RCinta? That gem by Kabir Bhatia explored the many facets of love, in five intertwined stories in the heart of Kuala Lumpur.
Bu is perhaps the Cinta of this decade, coming 13 years after that masterpiece, and once again set in the city centre, involving three stories rolled into one.
Advertisement and music video director Jeany Amir’s first feature film may have arrived a month too early for Mother’s Day, yet it is just the Mother’s Day story Malaysians will love to have.
This star-studded tribute to motherhood, spans three generations of Malaysian women, and carries the universal theme that no matter how messed up a youngster’s life is, mum knows best and is always willing to lend a hand, and no matter how angry she is, her love always prevails.
In the first story, Mah (Dian P. Ramlee), a veteran novelist has high hopes for her architect son Zack (Iedil Putra) and his banker wife Diana (Mawar Rashid) to herald the arrival of her first grandchild.
However, Diana gets a promotion in her company, and chooses to delay having babies to rise higher in the corporate ladder, while Zack, unknown to his wife and mother, loses his job as his firm ends up bankrupt.
In the second, one-time teacher and aspiring writer Aishah (Nadiya Nisaa) gives up her childhood dream to become a fulltime housewife and mother. She is married to Dr Norman (Rashidi Ishak) who also happens to be married to his work, and their Cosplay-crazy teenage daughter Julie (Dewi Remaja 2019 winner Tia Sarah) resents his “patient comes first” attitude.
Aishah tries her best to spend quality time with her husband and daughter, but both of them enjoy their workplaces or hobbies more. But a chance meeting with an old friend, bookshop owner Johar (Wan Hanafi Su) rekindles Aishah’s passion for writing and this unwittingly helps bring the family closer together.
In the third, hardworking chef Hafiz (Remy Ishak) plays an important role in his wife Nora’s (Nadia Brian) life. She is often
sad and pessimistic having suffered two miscarriages and fears of losing her next baby, while he is always her pillar of strength despite his own problem — his co-workers have pilfered some foodstuffs from the restaurant and blamed him for it.
Hafiz’s dream is to become a novelist, and faithful Nora fully supports him all the way. She finally becomes pregnant for a third time, but on their way to hospital, a car accident happens a few metres away from them, and this brings all of the characters together in an unforeseen climax.
Bu, which was filmed two years ago, is based on the upcoming Chinese film Mum, I Don’t Have Time, with a script co-written by Choor Choon Keat, Jeffrey Chiang and Hamiza Abdul Halim. It marks Nadiya’s big screen comeback to a major role after she gave birth to her second child last January.
It also marks Rashidi’s return to the big screen after the gritty human trafficking expose Sindiket (2017) and Dian’s return after the tear-jerker Langit Cinta (2016).
The three veterans give this film most of its emotions, especially Nadiya who has brilliantly transformed herself into a 40-something mum who patiently bears with her rebellious teen daughter’s whining and her husband’s hand phone addiction.
It is Nadiya’s first team-up with Rashidi, and since he is a father of two teenagers in real life, their playing Aishah and Dr Norman is spot on, since it enables him to share his parenting experience with her.
Dian’s Mah does not appear in many scenes, but each time she does, her compassion shines through. Viewers just want to root for her, and pray that she helps resolve the sticky situations that her son and daughter-in-law face.
Iedil makes Zack believable. Like many young professionals and newlyweds, he puts on a brave face and declines to share his problems with his loved ones, until the cat is out of the bag.
Call him dishonest, but all he wants is for his mother and wife to not worry. After all, it is common amongst Asian men to bear their sufferings with fortitude.
It is refreshing to see Mawar play a strong and determined young wife who is also ambitious in her job. Unlike the many girl-next-door roles she has played on TV, the Kelantanese actress has finally done something different on the silver screen.
The same can be said about Nadia. Instead of the usual glamour girl she plays on TV, her Nora is mostly swollen-eyed and in low spirits, lacking in self-confidence and dependent on her strong husband Hafiz.
Playing an unglamorous Plain Jane is no easy task, so kudos to Nadia for effort.
Remy, as always, burnishes his Hero Malaya credentials to the maximum. Just as he did in Pulang last year, he shines as the film’s stoical Malay warrior who wields kitchen utensils instead of swords and keris (dagger).
His facial expressions are superb, and most impressive of all, he spent hours in restaurant kitchens preparing for the role of Hafiz.
Sarah, at first look, may appear to be a typical spoilt, rich kid begging for a slap, but she is a lot more polite and compassionate than meets the eye, and it is to director Jeany’s credit that none of the protagonists look cliched.
Wan Hanafi, whose trademark long and silvery hair make him pass off as a kind, old wizard, is indeed one as Johar. The bookstore owner is a wizard in Malay literature and poetry, and his brief conversations with Aishah, his regular customer, are enlightening — they get viewers to know more about a famous poet from Lebanon.
Like Kabir’s films Cinta and Sepi, Bu has great cinematography, with lots of panoramic views of KL’s heritage buildings, concentrated in Chinatown and Jalan Tun Perak. The climactic accident scene is brutal but poetically executed, and focuses more on the expressions of passers-by rather than the victim (or victims).
Bu, with poetry as one of its key topics, is poetry in motion. A tear-jerker in some instances, it is generally a feel-good tale about the importance of mothers in our lives.
Best of all, the total lack of villains makes it a redemptive story about the importance of forgiveness and reconciliation.
It's truly a treat for all mums as it's a month before Mother’s Day.