The movie features outstanding performances by Ye Liu, Meryl Streep and Aidan Quinn, all who are extremely convincing in the roles that they play - Liu as the brilliant yet emotionally struggling graduate student; Streep as the earnest and warm cultural-exchange patron, and Quinn as the politics-playing-yet-not-overtly-evil professor.
One reason why I suspect I like the film so much is that I can appreciate, if not relate to the storyline. My father was a graduate student who emigrated from Taiwan to Canada to study microbiology and I'm sure had to struggle with isolation and was put in a position where he had to work his tail off as a foreign graduate student. My father was fortunate that his hard work was rewarded in time - he was given glowing recommendations which helped earn him placements at Stony Brook and to the Waksman Institute at Rutgers, eventually leading to a research position at a major pharmaceutical company.
Another extended family member has found, at least until this point, less success, having dealt with advisors who have been (in his eyes) less than forthcoming, honest and supportive. It seems that he may very well be dealing with the conundrum of the graduate student who is at the mercy of an exploitative professor: "Do a good job and I'll take all the credit for your work and I won't let you leave." or "Do a bad job, and I'll let you leave and give you a crap recommendation."
I definitely recommend the movie. But if you're a struggling foreign graduate student, you may want to wait until you're in a good place to watch it.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment