Left-Handed Girl

She’s produced four of her Take Out co-director Sean Baker’s films in the interim — Starlet, Tangerine, The Florida Project, and Red Rocket — and continues that collaboration with Left-Handed Girl, which he edited, co-wrote, and produced. On the other side of the camera are three women who deliver uniformly marvelous performances: Janel Tsai, Ma Shih-yuan, and nine-year-old wunderkind Nina Ye in the titular role. Now available on Netflix after a brief theatrical run that’s become de rigueur for the streamer’s awards-season offerings, Left-Handed Girl is joyful in a way that only the most bittersweet stories can be.

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It follows single mother Shu-Fen (Tsai) and her daughters I-Ann (Ma) and I-Jing (Ye) as they return to Taipei after a number of years rebuilding their lives away from the bustling city and, we’ll slowly learn, concealing secrets that can only stay hidden for so long. They’re both a family and a team, but there’s dissension in the ranks as their new roles are quickly defined: Shu-Fen runs a noodle shop in a vibrant night market, I-Ann works as a “betel nut beauty” to men who come for the mild stimulants and stay for the revealing outfits, and I-Jing is blissfully unaware of their fraught circumstances.

Superstitions about left-handedness have long abounded, ranging from fears of mere uncleanliness to biblical unholiness. Those seeking to co-opt the concept in their favor — including countless metal bands and self-styled practitioners of the occult — have adopted it as a symbol of individuality and self-determination, while traditionalists regard the left hand in similar terms as idle hands. I-Jing’s grandfather belongs to the latter camp, a dogmatic adherent to the belief that said appendage belongs to the devil. This allows the little girl to blame her childish misdeeds on her “devil hand,” but it also brings her great shame — if she can’t help the fact that she’s left-handed, what can she do about her supposed devilry?

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Left-Handed Girl is at its most immersive and moving when simply showing us the world from I-Jing’s innocent perspective as she navigates the neon lights and questionable goods of the night market. Her wide-eyed view of these unique environs brings to mind The Florida Project’s Moonee (Brooklynn Prince), a similarly precocious child brought to life by a gifted youngster. This is easily the best-looking film ever shot on an iPhone, a title that previously belonged to Tangerine; cinematographers Ko-Chin Chen and Tzu-Hao Kao offer a sensory, ground-level view of Tsou’s hometown with enough grace and verve to have you looking up flights. The creative team does a better, more authentic job of capturing the world through its heroine’s eyes than most movies about children, using wide angles that suggest Tsou was inclined to literally show more of her characters and her setting than traditional lensing would allow.

If she can’t help the fact that she’s left-handed, what can she do about her supposed devilry?

All three performances are magnificent. You feel as though you’re watching an actual family’s home movies, though only some are the kind they’d want to remember. “Did your sister pick you up on time?” Shu-Fen asks I-Jing one night. “No, but she told me to say she did,” is the girl’s adorable response. Mom quickly falls several months behind on the rent for her noodle stand, leaving her no choice but to ask her own mother for money; the matriarch is considerably less warm than her daughter and granddaughters, openly favoring Shu-Fen less than her siblings and denying her request. Before I-Jing can chime in on their financial situation, she’s cut off by her older sister: “If you make money, you can have opinions.”

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Neorealist trappings aside, this is far from a gloomy exercise in miserablism. Left-Handed Girl is about both a family and a city in flux, rendering both in bright, vivid colors that leave little room for darkness. There are scooter rides through Taipei’s hectic streets, solo dance parties in the cramped apartment, and even a pet meerkat. In one of the most memorable sequences, I-Ann gently prods I-Jing to return the many knick-knacks she’s stolen from various stalls in the night market (“my devil hand did it,” she says in defense of her shoplifting). Without exception, every shopkeeper asks her not to do it again but assures her it’s not that big a deal. In receiving their grace and forgiveness, I-Jing learns a much more valuable lesson than her grandpa would ever teach her: You may not be able to decide which hand you use, but you can choose how you use it.