Be with Me

For the songs, see Be with Me (The Beach Boys song) and Be with Me (J. Holiday song).

Be with Me is a 2005 Singaporean drama film directed by Eric Khoo. The film is inspired by the life of deafblind teacher Theresa Poh Lin Chan. It premiered as the Director's Fortnight selection in the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. It was also the official entry from Singapore for the 78th Academy Awards in the foreign language category. In December 2005, the academy body disqualified the film on grounds that the dialogue is mainly in English.^[1] Out of 93 minutes, the film only has two and a half minutes of dialogue.

Be with Me
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Eric Khoo
Written by	Theresa Poh Lin Chan Eric Khoo Wong Kim Hoh
Produced by	Brian Hong
Starring	Theresa Poh Lin Chan Samantha Tan Ezann Lee Seet Keng Yew
Cinematography	Adrian Tan
Edited by	Low Hwee-Ling
Music by	Kevin Mathews Christine Sham
Production company	Zhao Wei Films
Distributed by	Warner Bros. (USA) Peccadillo Pictures (UK)
Release dates	12 May 2005 (2005-05-12) (Cannes Film Festival) 8 September 2005 (2005-09-08) (Singapore)
Running time	93 minutes
Country	Singapore
Languages	Cantonese English Hokkien Mandarin

Be with Me is the first film in Singapore to explicitly feature a lesbian relationship.^[2]

Cast

• Ng Sway Ah as Father
• Sanwan Bin Rais as Security Supervisor
• Theresa Poh Lin Chan as herself^[3]
• John Cheong Puk Fai as Sam's father
• Elizabeth Choy as herself
• Leong Kooi Eng as Mother
• Lim Poey Huang as Jackie's mother
• Seet Keng Yew as Fatty Koh
• Shaun Koh as Sam's brother
• Ezann Lee as Jackie^[3]
• Poh Huat Lim as Brother
• Sherry Lim as Sam's mother
• Toh Cheng Onn as Neighbour
• Lynn Poh as Ann^[3]
• Chiew Sung Ching as Shopkeeper
• Jason Tan as Brian
• Royston Tan
• Samantha Tan as Sam^[3]
• Maximilan Wong as Neighbour's son
• Lawrence Yong as Son^[3]
• Seet Keng Yew as Security Guard^[3]

Release

Be with Me premiered at the Director’s Fortnight selection of the 2005 Festival de Cannes.^[2]

Reception

Ong Sor Fern of The Straits Times rated the film 4 stars out of 5 and wrote, "The way Khoo has marshalled his technical skills in the service of more characterisation and story marks a new stage in his development."^[4]

Geoffrey Eu of The Business Times gave the film a rating of "B-" and wrote that "Chan's story overwhelms everything else around it and the result is a film that is elegant but uneven in tempo - the soft-edged style is there in abundance, but the movie's progress is perhaps not as smooth as it could be."^[5]

References

1. "Foreign Film Barred from Oscars", BBC News, BBC, December 23, 2005, retrieved April 8, 2012
2. Anomalilly (2019-04-19). "Film Review: Be With Me (2005) by Eric Khoo". Asian Movie Pulse. Retrieved 2022-09-08.
3. Holden, Stephen (2006-09-29). "Three Tales Revolving Around a Real Life". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-09-08.
4. Ong, Sor Fern (7 September 2005). "A life less ordinary". The Straits Times. Singapore.
5. Eu, Geoffrey (9 September 2005). "Tales of love, lovingly told". The Business Times. Singapore.

External links

• Official website
• Be with Me at IMDb