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SIFF 2015: ‘How to Win at Checkers (Every Time)’ plays to a frustrating draw

SIFF 2015:  ‘How to Win at Checkers (Every Time)’ plays to a frustrating draw

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How to Win at Checkers (Every Time)
Written & Directed by Josh Kim
Thailand/USA/Indonesia, 2015

The new Thai drama, How to Win at Checkers (Every Time), is the feature-length debut of writer-director Josh Kim. While it has some interesting things to say about Thai culture, particularly their permissive views on homosexuality, it also lacks the narrative focus to make much of an impact. It’s a solid first effort from Kim, but the thin story moves too slowly to build any emotional momentum.

Oat (Ingkarat Damrongsakkul) is a pretty typical 11 year-old boy, who fights with his little cousin, perturbs his aunt (who is raising him), and worships his older brother Ek (Thira Chutikul). He’s a sensitive soul who lost his mother and father at a very young age, and his poor decision making reflects a serious lack of parental guidance. All he has in the world is Ek.

Sadly, Ek is a bit preoccupied at the moment. Thailand’s draft lottery is approaching and Ek just turned 21. He and his male lover, Jai (Arthur Navarat), are from different sides of the economic and ideological fence. While Jai’s parents smother him with every luxury (including bribing his way out of the lottery), Ek is forced to work for the town mobster at his adult nightclub. As the lottery approaches, Oat makes a fateful decision to help his brother, which has unintended and painful consequences.

The primary problem with Checkers is that this isn’t Oat’s story; it’s Ek’s story as seen through his little brother’s inexperienced eyes. We get brief glimpses into Ek’s conflict, particularly the stress he feels over leaving Oat and Jai behind, but we stop short of really exploring what makes him tick. We don’t get stories in the West about teenage boys and their male lovers, which makes his storyline especially fascinating. Mostly, however, we just follow Oat around as he mopes and frets about his powerlessness to change the unfair world around him.

OatAnd it is a terribly unfair world. Writer-director Josh Kim does a magnificent job detailing this impoverished place, where having a few scraps of meat for dinner calls for a celebration. Local ruffians extort money from businessmen who barely earn enough to survive. The culture is more accepting of homosexuality, yes, but it also objectifies them with its back alley leering and ladyboy exploitation. For a young man like Ek, who values honesty and reliability, it’s a poisonous environment from which he seems unlikely to escape.

Most of these juicy details are lost, however, on a protagonist who is absorbed in the daily turmoil of an 11 year-old boy. Oat is merely a vessel into this world, and an extremely passive one, at that. This passivity permeates the entire film, moving things along at a glacial pace. When Oat finally stumbles upon (literally) the titular guide to winning at checkers, it’s little more than a footnote to the story. Ultimately, we come to view Oat as an annoying distraction from the dramatic story of Ek’s impending draft lottery.

EkMost of the performances are awkward and clunky. It feels like Kim was trying to use non-actors to capture the story’s authenticity, but only succeeded in slowing things down even more. The one exception is Thira Chutikul, who delivers a mesmerizing performance as Ek. Again, you wait for his character to carry the story forward, only to be frustrated by his lack of screen time.

How to Win at Checkers (Every Time) is a well-meaning film at odds with its own objectives. It wants to tell a poignant coming-of-age story, but follows the journey of the less interesting boy. There are heartfelt messages delivered about perseverance and doing the right thing, only to be (seemingly) ignored by the main character. It wants to tell a story about empowerment, but doesn’t directly address the debasement endured by gay male prostitutes. Everything is tackled in such a matter-of-fact fashion that the film loses any sense of urgency. Director Kim knows how to build a convincing and palpable world, but his story gets lost in all the hustle and bustle. There’s enough good stuff here to suggest, however, that he won’t make that same mistake again.

[wpchatai]