When Thana (Thaneth Warakulnukroh) suddenly decides to walk with an elephant through the countryside to his childhood home, nobody seems to notice or much care. His wife, Bo (Penpak Sirikul), is frankly glad he’s out of the house, while the younger staff at the office mostly just want to know where his files are. Writer/director Kirsten Tan doesn’t fuss or overexplain these details, and quickly gets to what everyone wants to see: a man and his elephant on an unlikely journey. And that storytelling economy underscores the genial looseness of “Pop Aye,” which ambles nowhere in no particular hurry, but retains an engaging, humble charm.
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When we first meet Thana, he’s a man with little purpose, whose only significant impact on the world — a shopping complex he designed decades earlier — is being torn down by his younger boss at the architecture firm he works for, to make way for a larger, more coldly modern building. At home, that chilliness continues with Bo in a marriage that has lost all its fire as she pushes away his clumsy and ill-conceived sexual advances. So it’s not at all a surprise that when he spots his childhood pet elephant with a street vendor in Bangkok, his rootlessness dissipates and he finds some direction. When plans to drive the elephant back home fall apart, Thana decides to walk with Popeye (appropriately named because he can perform the “toot, toot!” at the end of the cartoon theme) all the way there. Yes, metaphors for revisiting the baggage from your past don’t get much bigger than a full-grown elephant, but it’s the only heavy-handed touch Tan employs, and it’s a forgivable one.
Playing out as a hybrid of “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” and the “Simpsons” episode “Bart Gets An Elephant” with arthouse sensibilities, Tan populates the picture with an eclectic array of characterful encounters. A homeless man, overeager cops, a trans prostitute and more manage to figure into Thana and Popeye’s adventure, and in each case it’s with surprisingly unexpected outcomes. But truly, anything involving a man and his elephant can hardly be expected to be conventional, and yet “Pop Aye” succeeds because you’re never sure where the next foot will land. And Popeye has such a personality of his own, he too can’t be counted on to simply follow Thana along. And while there are a few broad jokes, the humor is often as slyly conveyed as the film’s heart.
It’s assured work from Tan, who is blessed with a great turn from Warakulnukroh, who, even with no previous film credits, easily handles being in each frame of the film, carrying “Pop Aye” on his shoulders. Even more, while his countenance is largely pallid for most of the picture, when Thana does have those moments of unfiltered happiness and a smile materializes across his face, it’s like watching Warakulnukroh turn on like a light bulb. It’s nearly a special effect. Capturing it all is the lovely cinematography by Chananun Chotrungroj, who finds the beauty in everything from the endless horizon of the Thai countryside to the ramshackle appeal of a beat-up roadside bar. But it’s Thana and Popeye who are the star attractions, and both the intimacy of their relationship and the majesty of their awkward pairing are communicated with a strong visual touch.
While the construction might be elegant and warm, “Pop Aye” just misses coalescing its strengths as the film rounds into its final act. With its familiar themes echoing the notion that you can neither go home again nor correct errors from the past in the hopes of fixing the present, the picture never quite manages to find a crescendo. Aiming for something understated is perhaps its own kind of ambition, but “Pop Aye” is tailor-built for a grand payoff, particularly with Thana forced to contend with choices he made in the past and how they’ve affected the people around him. There is an eventual reckoning, but one wishes that Tan, at least for these moments, had allowed the film a few more inches of dramatic space.
However, these are minor concerns for a movie that makes it clear upfront that it’s going to amble through a mid-life crisis. As the film draws to a close, Thana seems to perhaps fully own and inhabit where his life has turned for better or for worse. And maybe that’s all any of us can do, but few of us will have had quite the trek Thana shares with Popeye, and it’s certainly an experience worth seeking out in “Pop Aye.” [B]
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