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RATING:   
SIGNAPORE : Crafting the perfect bubble-gum pop song is difficult, especially if you intend to use an unfamiliar-sounding chord or two.
But that's exactly what director Chookiat Sakveerakul does with his award-winning 2007 commercial film, "The Love of Siam", a coming-of-age comedy melodrama about family ties that, incidentally, also features the innocent blooming romance between two teenage boys.
After the abrupt disappearance of his older sister, Tong (Mario Maurer) and his traumatised family move house, leaving behind his childhood neighbour Mew (Witwisit Hiranyawongkul). The two boys cross paths a couple of years later, as Tong's family - the first time I've seen Catholics in a Thai film - continues to cope badly with the tragic loss.
Meanwhile, Mew is the leader of an up-and-coming boy band ... that's being managed by someone who looks exactly like Tong's sister.
But between the reunion and rekindling of a forgotten friendship, the two-and-a-half-hour-long movie dishes out a lot of weepy scenes, quirky comedic moments and enough convention-tilting absurdist details to make you realise this isn't your run-of-the-mill, angst-ridden, coming-out movie.
This M18 movie is an honest, sensitive glimpse at what it's like to grow up and discover that bittersweet thing called love.
- TODAY/il
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