Anywhere But Here / A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

Part of the UCLA Film & Television Archive series Directed by Wayne Wang. Register at cinema.ucla.edu to attend this in-theater screening.

In this adaptation of the Mona Simpson novel, single mother Adele August (Susan Sarandon) is bad with money, and even worse when it comes to making decisions. Her straight-laced daughter, Ann (Natalie Portman), is a successful high school student with Ivy League aspirations. When Adele decides to pack up and move the two of them from the Midwest to Beverly Hills, California, to pursue her dreams of Hollywood success, Ann grows frustrated with her mother's irresponsible and impulsive ways.

(1999, dir. Wayne Wang, 35mm, color, English, 114 min.)

“A gentle, pleasantly unrushed piece of moviemaking. There’s a tonic simplicity to how it gets the job done, A Thousand Years studies the subtle day-to-day tensions between Mr. Shi and Yilan before building, in its circumspect way, to a big emotional resolution. A more ambitious film might have forgone this predictable denouement; a less accomplished one would have fumbled its touching sincerity.”—Nathan Lee, New York Times

(2007, dir. Wayne Wang, 35mm, color, English, Mandarin, and Persian with English subtitles, 83 min.)