This is a film made with the best of intentions – and it has some good insights into the loneliness and isolation of seeking asylum in the UK. But there are a few too many sentimental moments to properly work as social-realism, or anything close to convincing drama, which is disappointing given its creator, Don Ng, is a journalist-turned-director making his feature debut. It’s set in London, where Bosco (a sensitive performance by Yiu-Sing Lam) has arrived from Hong Kong fleeing the government’s crackdown on political freedom, though he doesn’t really talk much about the situation back home.
Bosco is sent to live with other asylum seekers on a military base while his application is processed. Some of the best scenes turn out to be gentle observations of his sense of dislocation: walking around the local corner shop, for example, with its aisles of unfamiliar food. At a bus stop he meets Yasmin (Tsz Wing Kitty Yu), another asylum seeker, who writes letters to her student doctor boyfriend in Hong Kong, in prison for giving first aid to anti-government protesters. Bosco and Yasmin hang out together, though it’s obvious that for him the friendship feels like something more.
Ng’s script has a habit of raising issues without exploring them. Bosco gets a cash-in-hand job at a car wash, where the illegally employed workers seem happy enough; and there’s no suggestion of exploitation or unsafe working conditions. Then, one of the asylum seekers at his accommodation is threatened with deportation to Rwanda. In another storyline, a young British man falls in with a far right group protesting against immigration. It all feels muddled and contrived – a further script edit might have resulted in a more rewarding drama.
• No Time for Goodbye is in UK cinemas from 1 January.
