Grand Tour

Synopsis

1917. Edward, a skittish civil servant working for the British Empire, has been posted in Rangoon, Burma for years. When his fiancée Molly sends a letter announcing her imminent arrival, he experiences a sudden and debilitating case of cold feet, boards the first ship in sight, and flees the country. Learning of his escape, Molly is determined to track him down. So she embarks on an Asian grand tour, going from Bangkok to Shanghai in search of her reluctant lover. Equal parts 1930s Hollywood throwback and meditative travelog, director Miguel Gomes (The Tsugua Diaries, Chicago IFF 2020) imbues this globe-trotting love story with searching melancholy. The studio-set “colonial romance” is shot in black and white, and intercut with sumptuous color footage shot in the modern day. The result is an intoxicating mixture of fiction and documentary that ponders the past as it ruminates on our present.