AMOEBA

(The Toronto International Film Festival (or TIFF) marks its 50th anniversary this year. TIFF 50 runs September 4-14, with the fest’s usual vast array of movies playing in venues around the downtown entertainment district. Chris Reed has boots on the ground and lots to read about like this Amoeba movie review. Seen it? Join the conversation with HtN on our Letterboxd Page.)

With Amoeba, director Siyou Tan makes a powerful debut feature, telling the story of a group of teenage girls in Singapore struggling to develop identities of their own within a deeply conservative system. They call themselves a gang, get in trouble for it, and (mostly) continue to misbehave, though they each choose different paths forward. Informed by great specificity of place, the movie portrays universal experiences of all who have felt like misfits in their own home.

Though there are four main characters, the one central protagonist is Choo Xin Yu (Ranice Tay). She’s a late arrival to Singapore’s Confucian Girls’ Secondary School, immediately set apart from her peers because of this and the assumptions about why she left her previous institution. Many classmates view her with disdain, but not Nessa (Nicole Lee Wen), Sofia (Lim Shi-An), and Gina (Genevieve Tan), who invite her to join them at recess.

From there, the four of them form an almost inseparable group, filming activities with Sofia’s video camera, including the ghost Xin Yu claims is in her room (perhaps a manifestation of how haunted she feels by all the rules imposed on her). Sofia is the wealthiest and most socially connected of the bunch, which doesn’t stop her from wanting to be different from expectations. At least until the pressure of failure proves too strong to resist.

For this is the message of the school: that failure is the worst possible outcome, and the inevitable result of nonconformity. Work hard, study well, and learn the lessons that this wealthy island nation has determined are the best ones for you. Rinse and repeat, without variation.

There have always been people who enjoy such restrictions. A world without choice is easier for them. Just do what you’re told. But the nature of humanity is such that some folks simply cannot. And the primary flaw of authoritarian imperatives to bury one’s individuality is that outcasts—or, to quote Apple’s founder Steve Jobs, those who “think different”—are the reason our species innovates and evolves. Squash them and you have a very bleak future ahead.

But in the present here and now, our gang of four must contend with the reality they know, avidly documented by Sofia’s camera, frequently held by Xin Yu. The only older person who offers even the remotest semblance of kindly guidance is Sofia’s family’s driver, “Uncle” Phoon (Jack Kao). Otherwise, it’s them against the adult world.

The young actresses each deliver fully committed performances, sharing intimacies and more (with a hint of especially taboo same-sex love further isolating them from the ostensible mainstream). We can see the shapes they begin to inhabit, moving away from the shifting amoeba of youth. “How do we get out of this aquarium?” asks Xin Yu, plaintively, during her final exams, wondering how to escape society’s restrictive prison. The answer is to keep on doing what you do. To freethinkers, the alternative is just not worth it.

– Christopher Llewellyn Reed (@ChrisReedFilm)

2025 Toronto International Film Festival; Siyou Tan; Amoeba movie review

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