Putting a loved one into a care home is a difficult predicament. There's the powerlessness and guilt of not being able to do more than you can. Knowing that they're waiting for the inevitable end alone, the hope is your loved one person is in the best hands possible.
In Broad Daylight is a slice-of-life social issue drama that toys with that very notion in a thought-provoking fashion. Based on a real-life scandal of the Cambridge Nursing Home, whose staff was caught water hosing the elderly in groups on an open rooftop in 2015 and later exposed for physically abusing their patients.
Investigative reporter Kay receives an anonymous tip and goes undercover into the Rainbow Care Home, an elderly home that is allegedly physically abusing and mistreating its patients behind the scenes.
In Broad Daylight is a heavy but worthy watch. The film forces the audience to confront difficult ignored feelings, empathizing with the elderly being alone, neglected, and becoming an unwanted burden on their families. And for younger people, there's the abject terror of living in an elderly home when you get old one day.
Jennifer Yu leads the movie adequately as the journalist and is wonderfully supported by a strong ensemble cast of veteran actors, including Shaw Brothers' David Chiang and Bowie Wu as elderly patients and Bo Pui Yue as the scary abusive nurse and a scene-stealing Bowie Lam as the care home's warden. Rachel Leung and Henick Chou also shine as two mentally disabled patients. I expect acting accolades for the majority of the supporting cast come awards season.
Writer-director Lawrence Kwan Chun Kan presents the everyday ins and outs of life in the elderly home, peeling the onion layers and examining the situation from all sides, even from the perspective of its supposed evil staff.
In the film's highlight moment, Bowie Lam's warden delivers a bone-chilling monologue on how society neglects the elderly. And he is right.
The film emphasizes that it's up to the press to expose these scandals further to end them, ending on a slight dissonant note. That might be true, but as the credits rolled, my mind gravitated towards the fate of the abused elderly patients-specifically all the actual abused patients out there that the film is representing. That's a much more compelling thought to end on.
That minor quibble aside, In Broad Daylight achieves its goals effectively, almost like a wake-up call to anyone with a parent living in a care home, reminding them to spend more time and perhaps even to examine their living conditions. This movie is bound to leave a lasting impression.
