“It doesn’t matter how you see yourself. What others think of you is what matters most.”

Set some time before Taiwan legalized same-sex marriage in 2019, we watch the life of Shu-yi, the wife of a homophobic careerist doctor blind to his family’s needs, and the mother of loyal two sons who glimpse her pain. She tries to play perfect matriarch in public view but she watches with worry as her eldest son, university student Han, rebels against following in his father’s footsteps and studying medicine. She is also increasingly unable to turn a blind eye to her own unhappiness, the reason for which comes fully into view when Han gets involved with Xue-jin, an optician, an amateur photographer, and Shu-yi’s girlfriend from her university days…

Director Julian CHOU’s exquisite eye for framing the architecture and her cast bolster an intellectually intriguing forensic examination of the constriction of social roles and the fear of people’s perceptions, as explored with the metaphor of sight and characters blind to the emotions of others and themselves.