Dream Stall Review: Local Multihyphenate Annette Lee Serves Up A Tasty Directorial Debut

Dream Stall  (PG13)

Starring Annette Lee, Mark Lee, Xixi Lim, Jaspers Lai, Ya Hui, Cassandra See, Xander Pang

Directed by Annette Lee

A young UK-educated business graduate, Enya Lee (Annette Lee), returns to Singapore to take over her retiring father's (Mark Lee) bak kut teh restaurant against his wishes.

She aims to revitalise it with love and passion to preserve the memory of her late mother who collapsed and died while cooking there.

With the help of two childhood friends, she fights against impossible odds. Including a rival big-name BKT stall opening next door. And the insane rent demanded by Jack Neo cameo-ing as her Landlord Of Hell. Money is most definitely not enough here.

How would they feel, Enya guilt-trips her pals — marketing talent Tammy (Xixi Lim) and devoted-to-customer waiter Ahji (Jaspers Lai) — if her BKT shop is taken over by a hotpot restaurant? Immediately, this gal turns into a Singaporean folk hero right here.

Let me say this. It's really great to see a local ang moh-pai (Western culture) film speaking English that's not in your face, looking for an angle, too arthouse-pretentious or too ambitious.

This dramedy, well shot, simply scripted, about legacy-food continuation is easy to follow, pleasing to watch, and likeable to embrace.

With good chemistry among its cast. Especially between its two main players — Lee's headstrong Enya and Xander Pang as easygoing Preston, an important indie food reviewer who's the last honest taster in Singapore. Pang, son of local actor, Adrian Pang, cruises along on a scooter with nary a touch of work sweat or wok hei sticking to his person.

Now, what you need to know is this. Dream Stall isn't a food movie. It's a my-way-or-the-highway deal.

Director/co-writer/singer/songwriter/all-round-Supergirl Lee is an entertainment personality of some significance here with her YouTube videos, web series, short films, assorted shows. At the gala screening of this debut pic, she belted out songs like a pro.

This alpha mentality runs right through her movie like a freight train.

Enya, like Annette herself, ain't no wallflower. She's determined to run the restaurant to the extent of rebelling, Gen Z-stubborn, against the wishes of both parents. Dead or alive.

At her graveside, her mum signals to Enya via many coin tosses not to do it. To her dad, she's overly mean by snapping “Why aren't you dead?” when he reminds her that her mother basically worked herself to death selling that damn dish.

And to her friends, the lady boss is willing to break trust by doing things behind their backs to survive at all costs. “To save my shop, I can do it with a clear conscience,” she declares as she lies to Preston to get him to cover her stall by pretending that her dad fully supports her decision.

FYI. This leads to one genuinely comical moment when Father and Boyfriend meet at the doorstep of a HDB flat for the first time with the two chaps clueless about how thoroughly they have both been played.

But even more shocking is the, gosh, one-short-step-to-bed scene for Enya and Preston when the chick shows up at the dude's condo door complete with luggage and pillow. She has a habit of being kicked out of homes.

It's an attitude that's distinctly, refreshingly, authentically Singaporean in a movie that looks, setting and theme wise, very Malaysian. The shophouse locale where the rival-neighbour pops up as a phoney but unstoppable celeb-fronted restaurant called Estella's Bak Kut Teh, looks kinda like the place where Malaysia's Close Ur Kopitiam was filmed. But much cleaner.

While the influencer component of this tale with netizens and livestreamers deployed to carpet-sell said rival stall is so jiuhu style, you'd think this is KL. Dream Stall was partly shot in Malaysia.

By the way, this celeb plot point brings in ex-Mediacorp actress, Ya Hui, who excels in a meaty role here as Estella herself, a deeply-hurting fake poser who hates being forced to sell lies everyday. Her scenes with Lee are funny and soulful as the flick's best when both gals realise that they need the same kind of liberation from the deceptions they have been carrying.

You can tell, by this point, how persuasively good Annette Lee is as a YP (young person) filmmaker — she studied filmmaking in NTU — telling a Singaporean story with a finely helmed cast. From Mark Lee to Xixi Lim to Jaspers Lai to Cassandra See to even a cardboard cutout of Ya Hui, they all seem to hit the right note individually.

Dream Stall is a fun pic taken charge of by a confident young woman with clearly her own idea of achieving things.

This looks too easy for her.

Now let's see her take on something with a lot more meat than bak kut teh. (3.5/5 stars) in cinemas now

Photo: GV Pictures