Here’s a solid newsroom drama inspired by a string of real-life scandals involving abuse at care homes for elderly and vulnerable people in Hong Kong. It’s a film with a fair few clunking journalism cliches, and it never quite builds momentum. But the performances are uniformly intelligent and committed, and it has some real insights too; there’s the moral outrage a reporter feels as the penny drops, and she realises that people in positions of power already know about cruelty and neglect in homes. They just haven’t had an incentive to care.
Jennifer Yu is Kay, the star investigative reporter of a Hong Kong newspaper, semi-disillusioned by the job. After a tip off, Kay goes undercover at an understaffed, overcrowded care home, pretending to be the granddaughter of an elderly resident with dementia (she fakes concern when he doesn’t recognise her). The home is a dumping ground for people with a mix of needs: elderly and young people with physical and learning disabilities, all crammed in together. Kay watches a nurse slapping residents while the home’s manager (Bowie Lam) puts on the veneer of a kind man worn down by heavy responsibilities. But you don’t have to be a star reporter to view with suspicion the way he hands out ice creams to a pair of giggling teenage girls with severe learning difficulties.
As a procedural this a decent watch. While Kay is in the care home, her colleagues do the detective work of knocking on doors, pestering people who don’t want to talk to the media. Their department is next in line for the chop at the paper, and the film’s director, Lawrence Kwan, is making a point about the importance of well-funded journalism – the kind that shone a light on the Windrush and Post Office scandals. But he hits a few false notes when it comes to portraying the abuse itself. In one shocking scene in which naked elderly people are subjected to dehumanising treatment, the camera lingers their bodies while a thundering orchestral scores plays over the top. It made me wince.
In Broad Daylight is released on 19 January in UK cinemas.
