Hong Khaou makes quiet dramas about people struggling to understand one another. We value his patience with actors, though Lilting also shows how readily his dialogue can explain feelings a performance has already made clear.
Fi1m perspective
In Lilting (2014), Richard and Junn have grief in common, but that does not give them an easy way to speak. Khaou lets both be difficult without asking us to choose which deserves our sympathy. We were moved by Ben Whishaw and Cheng Pei-pei because their performances make those difficulties credible, even when the conversations feel arranged. His debut feature is worth seeing for their work, and for his willingness to leave room for it.
Junn's relationship with Alan, played by Peter Bowles, is where the writing begins to insist. It offers another way to examine intimacy and misunderstanding, but gets more attention than the connection can sustain. Elsewhere, dialogue states feelings the actors have already made apparent. The slow stretches make these arranged exchanges harder to forgive: a drama built around conversation needs us to believe the characters have reason to keep talking.
His films favour searching close-ups and subtle camera movement, giving us time to watch people rather than pushing towards the next event. Cinematographers Urszula Pontikos and Benjamin Kračun are among his collaborators, alongside editor Mark Towns, who has worked with him on two films. That restraint suits characters who cannot readily explain themselves. In Lilting, we would sometimes prefer another moment with an actor to another line of explanation.
Monsoon (2019), his second feature, follows a British-Vietnamese man returning to Vietnam after thirty years to scatter his parents' ashes. The journey takes his interest in grief and displacement beyond the London setting of Lilting. The move makes sense for a director drawn to people whose sense of home has become complicated.
The move into television brought the crime drama Baptiste, for which he directed four episodes of the second series (2021). Work on Alice & Jack (2024) and Mr Loverman (2024) followed. We would welcome tighter storytelling, provided the actors still have time to work. Start with Lilting if a quiet, performance-led drama suits the evening, and allow for conversations that last longer than they need to.
Biography
Hong Khaou is a British film director and screenwriter. Born in Cambodia on 22 October 1975, he moved to England as a political refugee at the age of eight. He studied film production at the Surrey Institute of Art & Design, graduating in 1997.
Khaou began his career with short films, including Summer (2006), which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival, and Spring (2011), which screened at both Berlin and Sundance. His debut feature Lilting (2014), which he also wrote, premiered at Sundance, where it won the World Cinema Dramatic Cinematography Award. It received BAFTA and British Independent Film Award nominations. His second feature, Monsoon (2019), premiered at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. He has directed episodes of the BBC series Baptiste (season 2, 2021) and the Channel 4 series Alice & Jack (2024), as well as the BBC adaptation Mr Loverman (2024).
