SPOILER ALERT: the following article contains massive spoilers, including the ending. If you have not yet seen the movie, proceed at your own risk, or better, come back to this article later!
As Mandarin-language teacher Ling continues with fruitless IVF treatment while taking care of her ailing father-in-law, she finds herself slowly drawn towards a promising student who seems to have been abandoned by his parents. Outside it is monsoon season, but Ling’s inner turmoil looks set to get her into a heap of trouble. Director Anthony Chen brings this simmering Singapore-set drama to the boiling point, whilst using an associative and poetic editing rhythm, repeating colors and shapes to highlight the small parallels that link people, and reveal the profound in lovely and subtle ways. With uniformly sensitive performances from the returning cast of Ilo Ilo, Chen’s Wet Season is the classy and well-measured teacher-student drama that will get you weeping this autumn.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Wet Season Plot Summary and Synopsis
Ling (Yeo Yann Yann), a Malaysian Chinese teacher in her late 30s, and her husband Andrew (Christopher Lee) are struggling to conceive through In vitro fertilization. Ling also has to take care of her bedridden father-in-law (Yang Shi Bin), who has suffered a stroke and is unable to speak, whilst Andrew is often absent from home. Ling sees a gynecologist at a clinic to be informed that she has two mature follicles. Outside, she finds Kok Wei Lun (Koh Jia Ler), a student who is infatuated with her, on crutches because of his injuries sustained from his wushu training. Ling offers to send Wei Lun home and learns that his parents are overseas on business and he lives alone.
Ling holds a remedial class for selected students, but they left when Ling temporarily goes out of school to meet her durian-selling brother. Ling returns to class with a bag of durians offered by her brother to find that only Wei Lun has remained, an act ridiculed by his classmates. Ling and Wei Lun share the durians in the classroom, and their relationship deepens. Wei Lun starts to frequently consult Ling for remedial classes, and eventually goes to her house, encountering Ling’s father-in-law while carelessly wandering around her house. Wei Lun invites Ling, who brings along her father-in-law, to support him at a national wushu competition. At the competition, Wei Lun wins first place and a gold medal. The trio celebrates by visiting Ling’s brother’s durian shop, and their ties deepen, forming a family.
Eventually, Ling’s father-in-law dies in his sleep. In his wake, Ling’s cousins-in-law decide that they should sell their dead father’s property, and she discovers that Andrew is cheating on her with another woman with a son, who have come to pay respects to him. Ling, lonely and without support, sends Wei Lun to his home. Ling goes up to Wei Lun’s house to take care of his bleeding nose in his bedroom, where he coerces her into having sex. Ling gives into Wei Lun’s sexual advances, and Wei Lun begins to initiate more inappropriate physical contact with her. Ling becomes reticent with Wei Lun, who begins stalking her frequently and harasses her on public transport after she crashes her car as a result of his rash actions. The affair is ultimately uncovered by the school principal after Wei Lun was caught in a fight with two schoolmates, who tried to expose covertly taken photos of Ling on his phone. The principal, expecting a promotion in the Ministry of Education, advises Ling to take a break from work to avoid complicating his promotion.
Ling, sending Wei Lun home in her car one last time, informs him that they cannot continue the affair. A heartbroken Wei Lun leaves the car, causing Ling to chase him into the open field in the rain. Wei Lun tearfully hugs Ling, who tells him to get used to rejection. Ling and Andrew divorce. Andrew’s lawyer highlighted an additional clause stipulating Andrew will not be held to paternal responsibilities in the event Ling becomes pregnant through his frozen sperm. Ling declares that she will not use them and wishes Andrew well with his newfound partner. They part ways.
Having discovered she is pregnant through a spontaneous pregnancy test, Ling experiences a gamut of mixed emotions in her apartment, now stripped of its furniture, soon to be sold away.
The Ending
She returns to her hometown in Taiping, Malaysia, and helps her mother hang the laundry. She stands outside, gazing at the sun that never came while she was in Singapore.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).