Samantha Rebillet | The Suitor / 2004

the unsuitable suitor

by Douglas Messerli

 

Jason Gordon (screenplay), Samantha Rebillet (director) The Suitor / 2004 [7 minutes]

 

Cindy Kwok (Renee Lim) is a 20-year-old woman from Hong Kong who still lives at home. She has a beautiful Australian boyfriend, Brett (Leon Ford), but her traditional parents stand opposed to that relationship, and attempt to interfere with it through the introduction of more proper suitors and refusing her late-night outings. Brett is growing frustrated with Cindy’s respectful handling of the situation, and suggests that if she cannot take a stand against her parents their love has little future.

    In the very next scene, we see her parents (Jane Shen and Harry So) introducing her to a new suitor from Hong Kong, Elton (Paul He). Elton is certainly an attractive man, but as she quickly “sets him straight” in her bedroom, she doesn’t have a broken heart, she has plenty of friends, and she doesn’t need a boyfriend because, as he pushes a photograph of Brett into his face, “I’ve already got one.”

     “He’s cute,” Elton replies. “Are you fucking him?” he unexpectedly inquires.

     Cindy turns back, startled by his question. “That’s not any of your business.”

     “Why not? If he was my man, I would every chance I got.”

     Suddenly Cindy is perfectly happy to go to the party with Elton. She seeks out Brett in the kitchen, whispers to him that Elton is gay, and suggests he introduce him to some of the partygoers.

Brett is only too happy to hook up Elton with two gay boys, as he and Cindy are now allowed to make out in complete freedom, escaping upstairs for their own entertainment.

     When they return to the dance floor, however, they see Elton in his short underpants shimmying between two cute boy’s bodies. He is also drunk.

      Together they take him back to Cindy’s room where, immediately confronted with the mother, Cindy explains that he got so drunk that she had to call Brett to help. The mother is outraged that the white boy is in her daughter’s room, but appears not at all appalled that Elton is passed out on her bed. Furious with her mother’s attitude, she insists that Brett is her boyfriend and she’s sick of her mother trying to control her life.

       “You don’t know how to choose the right man,” Mrs. Kwok insists.

       Pointing to the gay boy on the bed, Cindy inquires, “And you do?” She prepares to leave.

       Her mother shouts out, “What about him?”

       “You brought him here. You deal with him.”

     In the very next frame, we see Brett with Cindy trying to carry on a formal interview with his girlfriend’s parents. After his first question, “So, Mrs. Kwok, you mind if I call you Janice,” he is left only stuttering out words that being with the letter “J.” But presumably, this time at least, Cindy will approve of their choice.

      This charming short work by Australian director Samantha Rebillet, is now rather blurred. At least in the DVD I watched on YouTube. Rebillet, whose career included a substantial number of acting roles, of directing short works, commercials, and noted documentaries such as Butterfly Man and The Last Goodbye, and performing with her husband, the noted musician Ilan Kidron in “The Freaks in Love,” ended sadly. In 2010 she was operated on for a life-threatening brain tumor, but recovered. The couple and their children moved to Paris and then Los Angeles. But in November 2017, at age 45, she committed suicide.

 

Los Angeles, March 2, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (March 2023).