Review: Sight (2024)

Sight (2024)
Co-written and directed by Andrew Hyatt
Also written by John Duigan and Buzz McLaughlin

The biopic has a long cinematic tradition. When telling the story of someone who eventually became extraordinarily accomplished, it generally doesn’t matter whether they were a scientist, an artist, an athlete, or a cowboy; the film must show the protagonist Suffering, then Overcoming, and their Dedication in doing so.

No matter how threatening or serious the opposing forces were (or were not) in a protagonist’s life, the capitalist dictum says that the main ingredients of success are praiseworthy character traits — and not chance, or luck, or inherited riches, which are the main things that actually dictate whether or not someone becomes successful, rich, and famous. Luck, or being backed by your wealthy family, are not inspirational; traits like dedication, belief in yourself, the originality of your vision, and strength of character are. And most important of all, the audience must be told, usually more than once, that everything in the movie is A True Story.

This biopic about a Chinese student who struggles to become a successful eye surgeon in the U.S. is another inspirational movie brought to you by the Mormon-run film distributor Angel Studios, about which more later.1 Based on the true story of Ming Wang, who founded a private eye clinic in Nashville, the film relates how Wang (played by Terry Chen as an adult) was one of the developers of a groundbreaking technique that has the ability to restore sight to the blind.

The film tells two stories in parallel. One is set in the present day and dramatizes the work of him and his staff to develop the treatment. The other narrative, told in flashbacks interspersed with the present-day scenes, depicts the struggle of him and his family during the Cultural Revolution, when the Red Guard sought to banish Chinese history and tradition and, as Mao Tse-Tung put it, broke a lot of eggs in the process.

The film’s depiction of the Cultural Revolution must surely be one of the most sympathetic and even-handed depictions ever made. Without ever mentioning the words Red Guard, Cultural Revolution, or Mao — or even showing cadres waving red flags — the film does show squads of “demonstrators” who are part of an “uprising.” In their first scene, several men invade the classroom where the young Ming Wang (played as a child by Jayden Zhang and as a teenager by Ben Wang) is listening to a history lesson. The squad’s leader (Jeffrey Pai, I think) silences the teacher and makes a speech about how it’s time to move China forward without the cultural baggage of history and tradition. And quite frankly, he is made to sound at least a little bit reasonable.

This seemed like a strange choice on the part of the filmmakers. It’s not often that a truly bad villain, or group in this case, comes along, and when they do, there’s little to be gained by making them seem reasonable. Why not just show them as the fanatical thugs they were, as this is supposed to be a True Story?

In any case, the Cultural Revolution and the disruption to the education of our hero is one thing Ming Wang has to overcome — that, and the arrest of his childhood sweetheart, Lili (played by Kiana Luo child and by Sara Ye as an adolescent), who Wang never sees again except as a ghostly presence in his American life as he seeks the key to the sight-restoring treatment.

Another thing the movie never mentions, or deals with directly, is trauma. Anybody who lived through the Cultural Revolution, including the events depicted in the film — like watching Wang’s parents get beaten up, their place of work trashed, and Lili’s father being beaten to death — would have to deal with trauma. But Terry Chen, who plays the adult Wang, doesn’t seem to experience PSTD symptoms, or at least his anguished moments as an adult, such as when the first administration of the treatment is unsuccessful, don’t read that way. Neither does he undergo any therapy to address trauma.

Instead — as this is where the movie gets Inspirational — he becomes inspired by the little girl whose blindness is not cured by his treatment. She is shown being the center of a laughing, gently playful group of disabled kids, as a nun character (Fionnula Flanagan) who somehow has charge of the immigrant girl2 explains, the child has left behind her own past (which includes being intentionally blinded in her home country of India in order to make the girl a more convincing beggar) and lives in the present so she can entertain and comfort her fellow disabled kids. Through the power of prayer, the tot escaped her own history of trauma; the girl gives the doctor some prayer beads and this seems to enable him to do the same.

That’s not how trauma works. But just as it never says the words Red Guards, the movie never says the word trauma. I guess pretending there’s no such thing and that it can be dissolved by oneself through prayer is more Inspiring.

I knew what to expect when I went to see this film. A few months ago I saw a movie from the same distributor. Cabrini (2023) — a True Story, once again — was about an immigrant nun who founded a number of hospitals and orphanages in the U.S. in the early 20th century. The odd thing was that, aside from a quickly uttered table grace, it never once showed this nun praying. Instead she was shown as Overcoming all the obstacles to her calling through bold action and determination. The movies distributed by this outfit, Angel Studios, are long on inspiration and faith, but with as few details as possible about the actual spiritual lives of its protagonists. They have a Bonhoeffer biopic coming out this summer; considering Dietrich Bonhoeffer was not only a Lutheran pastor but a theologian whose incisive philosophy is respected by religious and non-religious people alike, I wonder how they’re going to depict his spiritual life. Will he get to pray? And the Red Guard got a sympathetic treatment in “Sight;” will the Nazis in “Bonhoeffer”?