Dear You(2026)

This review may contain spoilers.

Throughout college and my early post-school years, I always considered Mary and Max my favorite film of all time. A couple of weeks ago I talked to someone about how I felt like I've started to outgrow that film, and it's kind of fitting that the universe put me in front of another movie about how letters exchanged over vast distances change lives on both sides. Heartwarming and heart-rending, 给阿嬷的情书 is a beautiful story about longing, perseverance, and the importance of 情义.

Bagshang had to flee the country to avoid being conscripted in a civil war. Sogriu had to raise three kids through widespread famine and the cultural revolution on her own. They both had much bigger problems, but still they made room for each other and sustained their connection through letters alone, when Bagshang couldn't even read. Bagshang's selflessness was so infectious, it made Namgi, who only cared about her own family inn at the beginning of the film, willing to support a whole family of four across the ocean whom she never met. Longing and connection like this sound like fairytales now, but I want to believe that we haven't changed, and that it is still possible. If you have bravery and heart, like 阿嬤 says, eventually you will find your people, even if it brings you loss and heartbreaks in the process.

This story is not what I expected at all. Because the title mentions love letters, I was expecting a story that centers romance. My life for the past 2+ years, or perhaps the past 7 years, has been breaking hearts and getting my own heart broken. I was sort of leaning on this film to make my own closure over a recent heartbreak, because the person who did it to me was not willing to help me find it. Instead of a love story, I was given something much more profound and just as heartbreaking, and in a way, it really helped because it made my problems seem so small. Yeah, this loss hurt, but this story reminded me that I will suffer so many more losses that I'm sure are going to be much more painful in the future. Oddly, that gave me the relief I needed.

Had to catch this in film an hour away from where I live starting at 10 PM on a Sunday. I didn't get home until 1 am in the morning. Worth it.