Set in Singapore during the Asian financial crisis of the late nineties, Ilo Ilo follows the day-to-day travails of the Lim family. Jiale (Yann Yann Yeo) is a ten-year-old kid who is in constant trouble at school; receiving calls from year masters at their wits end is no news to stressed mother Hwee Leng (Iian Wen Chen). Because there are rumours of redundancies at her work, and because dad Teck (Iian Wen Chen) is preoccupied with his failing salesman gig, Jiale's parents decide to hire Filipino maid Teresa (Bayani) to look after the house and, more importantly, to keep tearaway Jiale out of trouble. However, money worries causes tensions in the house to rise and Jiale's tomfoolery puts Teresa’s illegal status in the country in jeopardy...
Initially slight and tough to get a hold on, the script from first-time writer-director Anthony Chen gets down to the business of revealing its layers. At first Chen makes a great deal of presenting the Lim family in all their unlikeable glory, but then goes about chipping away at that to reveal worried people with real loves, fears and insecurities. At first Jaile is Problem Child IV, a real detestable kid but, just as Teresa learns, all he needs are parents who are willing to spend time with him, and not to chastise him once they do; the progression of Jaile and Teresa's relationship from mutual hostility to a deep bond might be an obvious trajectory but it evolves naturally and subtly.
Everyone has their depths explored. Hwee Leng first treats Teresa like an untouchable serf, but Hwee Leng's desire to better herself through a self-help course suggests anxiety and self-doubt under the self-righteous bluster. Teck might be more thinly sketched than everyone else, but his emotional distance is down to knowing what his family are facing when the financial crisis trickles down. By the end you there are no villains. Chen's deft writing has worked its magic so that the audience can empathise with everyone in that final scene.
While not impressing hugely at first, the acting, and the attention to detail, begin to worm away at any indifference one might initially have to the film as Ilo Ilo's perceived slightness reveals a complex and rich character study.