The 2021 American film “B-Side: For Taylor” is a trail of rejection and misery. The solution or a possible attempt at obtaining it lies on the B-side of a cassette tape. Do you remember those 45 records years ago. The hit was on side A and the filler was on side B.
Being a reviewer of films, I don’t always accept the obvious premise so why don’t I take a leap and say perhaps the B-side applies to the quality of life to almost all the characters in the film. All are rejected by life and circumstances. Taylor, a 14-year-old Korean American living in small town Virginia, feels rejected by her birth parents. Other characters feel rejected by their parents, by the death of their spouses, by the desertion of their fathers, by their family, by the death of their parents, their failures and by their past. Their life is not an A-side hit but a B-side filler with multiple scratches on the B-side of the record.
Although Taylor is appreciative of the wonderful home and life her adoptive parents have given her she is “curious” about locating her birth parents. With the help of newly moved in Korean immigrants across the street, all suffering from rejection, an abortive attempt to locate her parents in Seoul reveals hidden secrets. Taylor finds that all that glitters in gold is fool’s gold until the B-side offers her the opportunity to step into the unknown and move from rejection into reality. The B-side and its quest grant almost all characters another lease on life. As one of the character’s mother puts it, “If we keep wanting the life we lose we might lose the life we have now.”
This 2021 100-minute film is directed by Christina YR Lim will be screening in Los Angeles at Regal L.A. Live and will be streaming on May 15th on VC online.
RKS 2023 Film 88/100.
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