Film Review: We Are All Strangers at Berlinale — Fireworks Burn Close, Yet Life Stretches Far Away

Film Poster for We Are All Strangers

Within the competition slate of the Berlin International Film Festival, We Are All Strangers could easily be categorized as a familiar family drama: blended households, marriage and childbearing, debt, illness, sacrifice, and coming-of-age. Its thematic entry points are not obscure, yet director Anthony Chen does not merely craft a story of warm familial affection. Instead, he reframes "home" not as an emotional destination, but as an ongoing, tangible real-world process.

Set in Singapore, the film traces the intertwined fates and reshuffled bonds of four characters: 21-year-old Junyang (Koh Jia Ler) and his girlfriend Lydia (Lynn Lim), alongside Junyang’s father Wenjie (Lin Weiming) and the woman he loves, Mei Hua (Yeo Yann Yann).

Triggered by an unplanned pregnancy and a belated second marriage, the story pulls two generations of virtual strangers under one roof. Crushed by the weight of daily survival, they are forced to mature step by step, slowly learning how to become a family.

This work is more than a realistic allegory of family life; it intimately depicts the slow transformation of strangers into kin.

Where does family come from? It is not an automatic product of legal blood ties, nor sealed by a single pivotal ceremony. Rather, it is forged gradually through shared hardship, bound together by the same rope and worn smooth by the grind of daily life.

Film Stills from We Are All Strangers

The most poignant illustration of this dynamic unfolds after Wenjie’s passing, as Junyang and Mei Hua’s relationship shifts.

Most similar narratives resolve such turning points with a pivotal cathartic scene: a heartfelt heart-to-heart conversation or tearful embrace amid grief. Anthony Chen rejects this trope entirely.

Junyang and Mei Hua do not suddenly find understanding or reliance within sorrow. Instead, they are thrust into an awkward, pragmatic coexistence: they launch a live-stream sales venture together, navigating trial broadcasts, quarrels, and reluctant coordination. They sell goods on camera yet bicker behind the lens, alternating between mutual disdain and unspoken tacit understanding.

What makes this segment invaluable is not just its layered emotional weight, but its patient portrayal of how relationships evolve. The film grants their bond room to draw near naturally — through friction, compromise, collaboration, and constant negotiation.

This shift is never accomplished in a single defining moment; it accumulates across countless small, unremarkable episodes.

Wenjie’s death marks an obvious turning point, yet the bond truly solidifies not from the loss itself, but from the multitude of overlooked, understated moments that follow.

Audiences may not immediately register that they have become family in the moment, yet looking back later, it becomes clear their connection shifted long before. Living side-by-side, they gradually witness each other’s sacrifices for their household, and redefine one another amid endless squabbles and teamwork.

Junyang sees Mei Hua’s quiet fortitude and unwavering support, while Mei Hua watches Junyang grow into a young man burdened with overdue responsibility. One is forced to mature prematurely by reality, while the other slowly builds a sense of belonging through consistent caregiving. Genuine closeness is rarely neat or graceful. More often than not, kinship begins not with love, but with shared obligation.

Even the subtly comedic beats — such as Mei Hua sneaking eye drops to summon emotion during livestreams — are not mere comic relief. They depict the quiet machinery that keeps ordinary lives moving forward amid brutal hardship. This treatment does not dilute grief; it renders it far more authentic. No one can dwell in endless sorrow; life drags people back to messy, noisy, disheveled reality, compelling them to press onward.

For most ordinary people, endurance does not stem from a single emotional confession. It comes from simply getting through each unceasing day. This is one of the film’s most incisive observations of working-class lives: it does not frame the resilience of common folk as a virtue worthy of praise, nor reduce its characters to generic suffering archetypes.

The film simply acknowledges a plain truth: ordinary people are not fearless, untired, or immune to life’s cruelty. They merely lack the luxury to pause and wallow in despair. They recognize how harsh the world is, yet they must carry on. This is not grand heroism, but a quiet survival instinct forged over years of hardship.

Film Stills from We Are All Strangers

The director weaves a thought-provoking contrast into this core theme: two wedding sequences, paired with a single balcony scene where all four watch fireworks together.

Consider the two weddings first. The younger couple’s ceremony is polished, complete, and institutionalized, embodying society’s ideal of a proper life milestone: full wedding gifts, church rituals, bustling crowds, and witness from friends and relatives. Every detail aligns with a socially sanctioned vision of order and success.

Yet the cost of this polished celebration falls not on the newlyweds, but on the father. Behind the wedding cash gifts lie loans and overdrawn finances — the price a father pays, risking financial ruin to secure a socially respectable start for his child.

Wenjie and Mei Hua’s wedding takes place at a street hawker stall, the space where Wenjie feels most rooted and in control. Modest and noisy, it lacks the markers of societal success, yet represents a hard-earned moment of joy after decades of toil.

Though both weddings mark entry into family life, they stand worlds apart: one is an abrupt, forced rite of adulthood thrust upon the young by reality, while the other is a natural extension of two lives already intertwined. Weddings here are not merely symbolic beginnings of happiness; they are spaces where resources are redistributed and intergenerational responsibilities are reaffirmed.

Family is never innate; it grows slowly through shared struggles and shared hopes. The balcony fireworks scene visually and thematically unites all four characters, gazing in the same direction. The frame compresses family, city, and class into a single composition.

Fireworks serve as a shared urban spectacle, yet they expose the class divide between witnessing prosperity and truly accessing it. Bursting fireworks hang vividly before their eyes, the family reunited in the present, and their longing for a better life is tangible. Though trapped in unchanging social circumstances, their fragile household is quietly taking shape.

Junyang’s defining character breakthrough arrives when the full weight of reality crashes down on him.

After Mei Hua is imprisoned, he breaks down sobbing in a car. His grief for Mei Hua’s fate, guilt over his misjudgments, panic over their bleak circumstances, and belated acceptance of his familial duties all converge in this moment. Every subtle emotional shift and character evolution woven throughout the film culminates here for the audience to witness.

This is not an isolated dramatic crying scene meant for spectacle; it is the first unmissable peak of Junyang’s character arc. For most of the film, he remains an impulsive, reckless young man clinging to fantasies of quick fixes, blind to their steep costs. Handled poorly, this role could devolve into a one-note troublemaker.

The film refuses to box him into a simplistic label, instead hiding his growth within mundane daily moments. From food delivery rider to real estate agent to livestream moderator, Koh Jia Ler portrays Junyang’s gradual transformation from a carefree student in love to a breadwinner burdened by household obligations through subtle physicality, muted facial expressions, and weary pacing.

Audiences may not notice his maturation in real time, yet upon reflection, it is clear he now carries an entirely different weight of life. This breakdown illuminates not only Junyang’s growth, but his awakening: family members are not merely people to share rent with — they are the ones you cannot abandon when hardship arrives.

The film’s most restrained yet devastating scene takes place on a bus shortly before Wenjie’s death, as Mei Hua eats an apple.

Film Stills from We Are All Strangers

The most restrained and sharp moment in the film is the scene where Mei Hua eats an apple on the bus before Wen Jie's death.

The scene’s power stems first from stellar acting, yet it transcends performance alone. Yeo Yann Yann layers overwhelming, tangled emotion into one tiny, intimate gesture: she chews the apple, a faint smile still lingering on her face, while tears spill unbidden.

The apple handed to her by Wenjie symbolizes the lingering thread of their bond. It attests to the genuine affection they shared, while foreshadowing the permanent severance of their connection.

Eating is prohibited on Singapore’s public buses, adding an undercurrent of broken social order. Yet this transgression is not an act of rebellion; grief overwhelms social rules and surges through her body unfiltered. The most agonizing pain rarely stems from tragedy itself, but from the mundane fragments of life that continue afterward.

This scene resonates deeply because it echoes an earlier bus sequence, where Wenjie takes Mei Hua for a leisurely drive along the coastline. Anthony Chen masterfully reuses identical spaces to create emotional resonance amid crushing hardship, granting brief, tender breathing room for characters and viewers alike.

Both scenes unfold on a bus at dusk: the first captures fleeting sweetness amid working-class drudgery, while the second stands as a quiet prelude to separation. The physical space remains unchanged, yet the weight of fate resting on the characters has shifted irrevocably.

The film redefines this single location entirely: the first ride signifies drawing near to one another, the second marks farewell. Happiness is authentic, yet sorrow is equally real. Moments of warmth make hardship feel more tangible; suffering weighs heavier once you have briefly known comfort. Through this contrast, the director conveys the core truth: the true test of building a family is choosing to stay, even after fully grasping its sacrifices.

The director’s faith in slow-burn relationships makes these quiet segments rich and fully realized. That said, certain story beats lose cohesion, shifting from organic character growth to plot-driven incident. At times, the mechanics of narrative progression overshadow internal character logic.

This imbalance is most apparent in Lydia’s storyline. Her arc held rich potential to explore religious family dynamics, fractured mother-daughter bonds, downward class mobility, and choices around pregnancy and marriage, yet she is reduced to a functional supporting character in the second half, weakening the film’s potential sharp commentary on family structures.

Interviews with the creative team reveal Anthony Chen made these pacing choices intentionally. Trimming character detours keeps the film’s contemporary momentum and tight pacing, yet creates unevenness in its most powerful core narrative about building a family.

These shortcomings do not overshadow the film’s rare, tender strengths.

Anthony Chen does not merely depict the end result of forming a family — he redefines the arduous process of becoming one.

Revisiting the film’s title, We Are All Strangers carries far more weight than its warm, sentimental premise suggests. It encapsulates all the hardship endured before kinship takes root, hardship laid bare within ordinary daily moments and tiny quiet interactions.

In the final sequence, Junyang brings his kindergarten-aged child to visit Mei Hua in prison. When the child calls her “Grandma,” a raw, unvarnished truth emerges: people do not first gain stable belonging before taking on family responsibilities. Instead, through bearing life’s burdens together, they slowly learn who belongs beside them on life’s journey.

Fireworks may blaze vividly close at hand, yet the road of daily life stretches endlessly far ahead. Home grows precisely within that long, unending path they must walk side by side.

Once the fireworks fade, they keep moving forward — together, wiping away tears as they go.

Members of the main creative team of We Are Not Strangers

Image: From the Internet

Text: CAI Siran

Layout: Lu Xuanlong

Editor-in-charge: Lu Xuanlong