Preparation for the Subsequent Life’ evaluation: Stress as love interrupts objective.

Throughout a darkish second in Bing Liu’s “Preparation for the Subsequent Life,” our protagonist, Aishe (Sebiye Behtiyar), seeks steerage in a spot she didn’t assume she’d return to: a mosque. An undocumented Uyghur immigrant from China, Aishe has left behind the faith by which she was raised. However feeling alone and caught in New York Metropolis, she turns towards this place of cultural familiarity, the place the imam counsels her that she’ll be rewarded for her obedience in her subsequent life. However what about this life, the one she’s residing now?

Aishe has been getting ready for her subsequent life since she arrived in New York, getting stronger, smarter, sooner, in order that she will make the leap to an existence that’s extra snug, safer, extra considerable. Like most younger women with massive desires, there’s just one factor that may gradual her ahead momentum and that’s, in fact, a boy.

“Preparation for the Subsequent Life” is the narrative function debut of Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker Liu. His much-lauded movie “Minding the Hole” is a searing and looking out venture about his childhood pals, a gaggle of skate boarders he adopted over the course of a heady transition interval, usually turning the digicam on himself and his circle of relatives.

In “Preparation for the Subsequent Life,” Liu as soon as once more trains his lens on the fragile coming-of-age that’s the early 20s. Because the title of this adaptation of Atticus Lish’s 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award-winning debut novel suggests, it captures a liminal time by which Aishe, in reflecting on her previous whereas preparing for her future, is stunned by the arrival of a brand new one that enters her life and asks her to remain within the second, not less than for a short time.

Aishe locks eyes with Brad Skinner (Fred Hechinger) on the road in Queens and so they share an instantaneous intrigue. He’s just lately been discharged from the Military, arriving in New York with some money and a want to do something however go house. The younger couple fall into lust, then love, over beers in a Latin American cowboy bar, Uyghur avenue meals after which in a shabby basement residence. Skinner is a reprieve from Aishe’s life working in brutal restaurant kitchens for under-the-table wages; Aishe is a grounding drive for Skinner, grieving the lack of his greatest buddy and managing his PTSD signs with a cocktail of meds and loads of booze. They’re each totally alone on the planet till they’ve one another.

Liu transports us into this small however affecting love story with gorgeous, saturated, fluid cinematography by Ante Cheng and a swooning rating by Emile Mosseri. The filmmaker deploys this lush aesthetic to make us fall in love with Aishe and Skinner’s unimaginable, head-over-heels romance.

He weaves in Aishe’s childhood reminiscences of her father, along with her Uyghur language narration addressed to him, as she asks imploring questions of a person who won’t ever have the ability to reply. Skinner’s army background conjures up her personal bodily coaching, jogging miles and lifting weights. She’s at all times searching for her father, not simply in Skinner the soldier however in herself too, the remnants of his presence thrumming by means of her reminiscence.

Bold, pushed and determined to vary her station in life, Aishe contemplates marriage, hoping for a path to authorized standing, although the one free recommendation she will get from an immigration lawyer is to watch out about whom she marries. She heeds this warning, beginning to understand that this boyfriend won’t convey her freedom however deadweight, as a lot as she tries to assist him assist himself. The situation is excessive stakes given each Aishe’s standing (she’s at one level arrested and detained) and Skinner’s psychological well being struggles, however this can be a basic story of a primary love that curdles from candy to bitter.

The compelling performances and Liu’s clever course elevate the script. Behtiyar, in her debut function, is spectacular, eyes fiery, her expression usually inscrutable, physique in fixed movement as Cheng’s digicam follows shut behind. Her reference to Hechinger is palpable, heady and heated, regardless of their characters’ variations, and it’s good to see Hechinger in a extra grownup, romantic function, at the same time as Skinner falls prey to his personal demons.

Liu does indulge within the prolonging of heartache and indecision, and the story stalls whereas heading into the third act, the movie stretched past what the fabric can maintain. Nonetheless, “Preparation for the Subsequent Life” is a robust assertion of desires, humanity and arduous work, arguing that each individual has a previous, a future and a narrative to inform. Some loves are for a lifetime, others only a second, however nothing’s stopping Aishe from what she desires on this life — or her subsequent.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune Information Service movie critic.