WARNING: This review contains a crucial spoiler… for those who have never seen M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense. ;-)
Thailand makes too many ghost movies. Already four out of seven Thai films released so far this year prominently feature spirits and other supernatural creatures. Fortunately, Dorm transcends being an ordinary film about frightening dead people. It tells a beautiful story about friendship and redemption, about growing up and growing out of the past by forgiving others and yourself. In short, Dorm is an outstanding coming-of-age tale for adults as well as for children.
The film opens with 12-year-old Chatree (Chalee Trairat) being abruptly sent to a boarding school against his wish. There, he makes no new friends, the class bully terrifies him with ghost tales, and his teacher (Jintara Sukapat in her quietly powerful performance) exhibits eccentric behaviors as she blames herself for a student’s death. Eventually, he befriends classmate Wichien (newcomer Sirarath Jianthavorn) and things look bright until one day Chatree discovers that his best pal has been dead for at least a decade.
Especially for those who have seen The Six Sense, the film provides easy clues for the audience to guess that Wichien is a ghost. Unlike The Six Sense, however, hiding this secret is not the top priority for Dorm. This revelation comes at the film’s half way point and what happens afterward shifts the film from the horror genre to a family-friendly one, as it pushes the camaraderie of the two boys to its forefront and the ghost elements secondary.
Chalee delivers a solid performance expressing resentment, loneliness, fright, and, most importantly, maturity at the end when he finally learns the true meaning of friendship and forgiveness. Both he and Sirarath lighten up the film with their wonderful onscreen chemistry. We laugh when they tease each other and we empathize when they seek shelter from loneliness. Other young actors are also delightful to watch as director Songyos Sugmakanan once again wields his magic in working with children.
High expectations amount for Songyos, the second director of the 2003 blockbuster My Girl to go solo (following Komgrit Trivimol’s 2005 Dear Dakanda), and here he does not disappoint. He moves the storyline forward by gradually peeling the plot layer by layer, which effectively makes the film quite suspenseful. Unfortunately, the adult viewers may be let down by the simplicity of and modest answers to the film’s mysteries and unconvincing explanation to Wichien’s death reenactment.
The studio GTH has been marketing Dorm as a horror but I wonder if this is the wisest decision because horror movie fans would be disappointed and the family film audience would not see the movie in the first place. If Dorm means to be a coming-of-age movie all along, then why include a ghost character? Is the director establishing a new kind of Thai ghost movie (the one with a heart)? Is he strengthening his theme of friendship (accepting friends as they are)? Or, is he making a point that sometimes we treat other people like ghosts (we don’t care about them as if they are invisible)?
These questions are for your discussion in your own time. Meanwhile, take your family to see Dorm. It’s humorous. It’s enjoyable. It’s beautiful.
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