Lilting (2014 Sundance capsule)

Lilting could have been a routine melodrama with a couple good performances, but it reaches deeper grounds by exploring just what it means to connect with another person. Ben Wishaw plays a young Englishman who is still mourning his boyfriend’s death. The deceased’s elderly mother (Pei-pei Cheng) never adapted to British culture after immigrating, never learned her son was gay, and speaks no English. She lives in a nursing home, where she has forged a romance with a man (Peter Bowles) with whom she shares no common language.