“I Will Make You Mine” “explores the experience you have when you are confronted by your past,” writer-director-star Lynn Chen explains in her director’s statement. “With ex-lovers, things become even more complicated. Here is a person who knew you intimately, someone who you’ve been vulnerable with. The regression doesn’t feel normal, it feels embarrassing. You become this ghost with bad manners, cheating on your current life.”
The “semi-sequel” to 2011’s “Surrogate Valentine” and 2012’s “Daylight Savings,” “I Will Make You Mine” follows three women with a romantic connection to the musician Goh Nakamura, who plays himself.
Since main characters Rachel (Chen), Yea-Ming (Yea-Ming Chen), and Erika (Ayako Fujitani) all seem to be fixated on Goh and his role in their lives, you’d probably assume he’s wonderful, a dream guy. But the film actually depicts him as something of a cipher. He’s charming enough and a good dad, but he’s really a placeholder the women project their expectations and fantasies upon.
For Erika, his ex and the mother of his daughter, Goh is frustrating — he’s caring and loving, but also unreliable. She could be happy enough with him, but maybe she’d be happier with someone or something else.
For Rachel and Yea-Ming — Goh’s high school crush, and his friend and creative collaborator, respectively — he is a distraction from their current disappointments. Rachel’s marriage is in trouble, while Yea-Ming fears her career and personal life are going nowhere. Maybe with Goh, they wonder, they can live the lives they want, be the people they want to be.
With “I Will Make You Mine,” her directorial debut, Lynn Chen created a rom-com where the male romantic lead is a symbol the female leads apply meaning to. Goh isn’t a real person in the women’s eyes, at least not when the film begins. Rachel and Yea-Ming see him as a solution to their problems, while Erika can’t help but compare him to the idealized version of a partner who may or may not actually exist.
It’s always refreshing to see a romantic comedy that is in touch with reality. Chen and “I Will Make You Mine” acknowledge that romance is as much about ourselves, our hang-ups, and our blindspots as it our partners. In order to figure out exactly how they feel about Goh, Rachel, Yea-Ming, and Erika first have to take a good, long look at themselves.
“I Will Make You Mine” was originally set to premiere at SXSW 2020, which was cancelled due to the pandemic. It is now available on VOD.
