Faith-based movies are an acquired taste. You either love and cheerlead them or loathe and dismiss them. There’s a slim-middle ground that appreciates the message, but can’t help but roll their eyes at the often cloying and treacly execution. As someone who prefers the big picture over the partisan, I find myself firmly in the third camp as I review Sight, the latest offering from the up-and-coming Angel Studios.
Based on a true story that’s at least “95%” accurate according to the producers, the film focuses on renowned ophthalmologist Dr. Ming Wang (Terry Chen) in 2007 as he attempts a near-impossible surgery to restore the sight of a young Indian girl (Mia SwamiNathan) who was deliberately and cruelly blinded by her step-parents in order to appear more sympathetic as a beggar. Interspersed with this mission is the biographical journey of Ming as a young man in 1970s-China and later 1980s-America as he overcomes the barriers of communism and racism in order to achieve his dream of becoming a doctor.
This dual story illustrates the unresolved trauma in his life and the burden he piles on himself to not fail his patients, despite the attempts of his friend and clinic partner Dr. Misha Bartnovsky (Greg Kinnear) to lighten the load. As failed attempts to restore Kjal’s sight pile up and Ming begins to doubt his own abilities, he will ultimately need to dig deep and look beyond himself and even his goals in order to attain peace and truly help his patients.
While clearly operating on just barely-above TV movie production values, Sight does manage to construct a solid tale of a man and his struggles to do right by his family, his past, and ultimately himself. While one can’t help the feeling that the whole endeavour has been somewhat sanitised (The real-life Dr. Ming himself shows up in a mid-credits message), there is still a compelling journey to be had with a career-making performance by Terry Chen who has finally managed to break free from TV-guest star purgatory. The film is well-shot and makes excellent use of Vancouver locations to sub in for both 70s-China and early 2000s Nashville.
Where Sight ultimately stumbles is in its groan-inducing attempts at humour. I absolutely refuse to believe that Ming’s younger brother Yu Wang (Garland Chang) is as big of a slacker doofus as depicted here. Every attempt at a joke falls flat and barely elicited a titter from the packed theatre I saw this in. I also find it hard to believe that Yu doesn’t retain a Chinese accent like his brother despite them both growing up in China nor do I find it credible that a family that immigrated from China would all be speaking English amongst themselves (the China scenes are all in Mandarin). It’s a curious creative choice that fractures the already shaky verisimilitude.
Sight is the type of film that will likely immensely please its target audience and not much else. It has pure intentions and decent dramatic execution but (ironically) limited vision. Still, if this film does end up enchanting you, you can partake in Angel Studio’s offer to “pay-it-forward” by buying tickets to the film for the economically-challenged via a QR-code plastered on the screen during the end credits. I opted to pay only for concessions.
6.5/10
Sight is currently playing in theatres across Canada