Randall Park and Sherry Cola on top, top form

Just how unsympathetic can you make a movies main character? There’s been some great movies centred around truly awful people and the usual way to make the audience enjoy their journey is either by making the character charismatic or by making their situation interesting. The danger there, though, is that it’s possible to make the characters personality flaws likeable, excusable, or even desirable.

Justin H.Min’s ‘Ben’ is deeply unlikeable. The film is careful not to have him do anything thats irredeemably bad but neither is he interesting or charismatic. He’s rather tedious and boring (although admittedly an incredibly gorgeous) person. In fact, the most interesting thing about him is that he’s best friends with Sherry Cola’s ‘Alice’, who absolutely is interesting and charismatic. And if she see’s something in him, well there must be something there.

Except that Alice is also a bit of a shitty person and the thing they see in each other is their own flaws reflected back at them. A fact that means they feel comfortable in each other’s company and can feel seen whilst not being judged.

This is a really funny film where the jokes land often enough to keep you engaged but never overwhelm the drama. There’s a few proper belly laughs in there as well.

There’s a lot of dialogue around internalised racism that feels very personal and insightful, and even manages to mine it for comic potential. I felt like the creators really had something to say about Asian representation in media and they managed to do that in a way that was thought provoking without giving easy answers.

No Easy Answers extends to Ben’s character arc. There’s no lessons learned at the end, no redemption or setting things right. But there is an acknowledgement that things have to change. Maybe he will and maybe he won’t. But the fact that he might feels warm and hopeful.