#definition please

100% Accuracy

Directed/written/starring Sujata Day

As a former spelling bee champ, I was fully on board when I head this film about would be dropping on Netflix a few weeks back, and the idea of what the national "Scribbs" champ does with her life once grown is a fantastic premise. However, there's two other significant subplots (brother's mental health and mother's physical health troubles, the former of which goes misdiagnosed by the movie) that most debut features can't properly weave together appropriately. It also happens to have the production value of someone's home movies, uses a LeVar Burton cameo early on to spread a lie about gum consumption, includes some wooden child performances, and can't manage to get the most basic rules of spelling bees correct.

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Day does her best on an indie budget to dismantle or challenge all the usually accepted myths about Asians being model minorities in her straightforward script. Definition Please is best when it focuses firmly on its characters’ highs and lows, their triumphs and struggles through moments of earnest reflection. I could have done without the more expected plotting and third act reversal, but the film manages to connect its dynamics together with a tenderly honest look at a flawed Indian-American family of adults all doing their best.

"My goal for this movie is that I hope it inspires other young creators and writers and storytellers to not be afraid and to go out and tell their own stories.”