Nobody (2020)

Contemplative, if not everyone's cup of tea

Maybe it is best to start off with what this film is not. It is not a movie with an engaging storyline, full of suspense, twists and action. And while it may be classified as a film with LGBTQ+ themes, it is not too focused on LGBTQ+ issues either. The film may not live up to expectations because of what it is not, but it is also beautiful in its own way.

The film has quite a number of characters though the ones who take up most of the screen time are the old man and the teenager. It is just that there isn't that much of a narrative where these two characters are concerned. The old man takes buses and inexplicably spits in the buses, to the chagrin of the bus drivers and other passengers. A teenager, who is trying to record evidence of her father having an affair, sneaks into the old man's apartment without permission because it offers a good view of the adulteress' apartment. However, she accidentally leaves her phone in the old man's apartment and when she tries to retrieve it, the old man damages it, so she keeps harassing him for payment or to let her use his apartment for her self-imposed task of catching her father in bed with the woman he is having an affair with.

In many ways, the film foregrounds the distance between people in society. There is so much going on in the lives of people around us, but do we really ever stop to care? If we see the old man spitting in a bus, do we stop to wonder if he may be someone with a sad story or do we simply feel disgusted and wish that he does not bother us? The teenager does not make an effort to understand her mother; neither does the teenager's brother and father. She is feeling dissatisfied with her life, envying a friend who has some sort of a career while she only gives piano lessons to a young man hoping to be a star. On the other hand, perhaps people also prefer to keep things to themselves. The teenager's mother does try to find out what she has been doing, but she is impatient and irritated by the motherly questions. The teenager's brother and the mother's piano student are gay and in a relationship, but the mother has to find out in a most awkward way--just as she starts taking a romantic interest in the student (perhaps psychologically explainable as a sort of a bid to re-live the youth she has lost). So lonely as we might be, there are probably things that we prefer to leave unsaid. After all, we live in a society with people who can mercilessly gossip about and judge others, such as when people speculate that the teenager is an underaged prostitute who has been going to the old man's house to provide her services.

The film, nevertheless, is humane in its portrayal of the plethora of characters, showing their dark secrets without judging them. Perhaps there is a personal risk in opening up to others, but it can also forge a connection between people, as the old man does when he reveals to the teenager that he is transgender when he tries to advise her not to hurt herself more by exposing her father's adultery to the rest of the family. The film ends ambivalently, with the old man seeming to be on the verge of suicide when the teenager appears and calls out to him. She walks towards him, stops some distance away, and the film ends. Is it the connection between them that is emphasized or the distance between them that is emphasized?

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