Other Reviews Reviews

Documentary Review: Kelly Loves Tony (1998) by Spencer Nakasako

A different take on the "American Dream'

A production of the Center for Asian American Media in association with the Independent Television Service, “” is a take on documentary co-creation, since the two “subjects”, seventeen-year-old Kelly Saeteurn and her fiancee Tony took as much part in the shooting of the film as director

Kelly Loves Tony is streaming on OVID.tv

Seventeen-year-old Kelly Saeteurn is a lu Mien refugee from Laos, and the first member of her family to have graduated from high school, on her way to college. At the same time, Kelly is in a loving relationship with Tony Saelio, also a Laotian, and a junior high school drop-out and ex-con, and eventually, she becomes pregnant. Somewhere between necessity and lu Mien tradition, she has to move in his family’s house, where she hopes his parents can help her with raising the baby while she studies. The reality, however, proves rather different, particularly since Tony also has to face the danger of deportation. 

Spencer Nakasako, with the help of his two protagonists, creates a rather realistic portrayal of intense love clashing with a the rather harsh reality of immigrants in the US, and among a couple that share feelings and a common ancestry, but at the same time, are world aparts in terms of how they dream their future lives. The discussions Tony  has with his boss highlight this aspect quite clearly, as we hear the latter repeatedly insisting that Kelly is ‘school material” and Tony is not. As the movie progresses, and with the deportation trial hanging over their heads like a Damocles Sword, the pressure piles up, particularly since Kelly is not receiving the help she expected from her parents-in-law, who, despite not appearing in the documentary, seem to not like her particularly. 

All the while, however, the love the two share is rather obvious, even during their fights, whom Nakasako has captured in brutal honesty, obviously having gained their trust completely. As these contradictory aspects of their relationship come to the fore as thoroughly as possible, the narrative of the movie changes towards a question regarding the whether the two will manage to get over their differences and their particular situations in order to stay together, in an aspect that retains interest for the majority of the economical 60 minutes of its duration. 

At the same time, however, the documentary shows its age quite significantly, with the home video visuals appearing particularly amateurish in the age of HD video, while the rather personal nature of the story makes it really hard to empathize with the protagonists after a fashion, particularly for the viewers who do not share the rather specific problems they do. 

Furthermore, despite the fact that the difficulties to retain a relationship and the immigration issues, which are essentially the main topics of the documentary, are always timely, the overall approach seems somewhat outdated, since the world has changed significantly from 1998 when the film initially screened.

“Kelly Loves Tony” has a retro kind of appeal, also deriving from its intensely realistic premises, but, at the same time, remains a film that, nowadays, will only appeal to a very specific audience, and definitely not to the average viewer or even film buff for that matter. 

About the author

Panos Kotzathanasis

Panagiotis (Panos) Kotzathanasis is a film critic and reviewer, specialized in Asian Cinema. He is the owner and administrator of Asian Movie Pulse, one of the biggest portals dealing with Asian cinema. He is a frequent writer in Hancinema, Taste of Cinema, and his texts can be found in a number of other publications including SIRP in Estonia, Film.sk in Slovakia, Asian Dialogue in the UK, Cinefil in Japan and Filmbuff in India.

Since 2019, he cooperates with Thessaloniki Cinematheque in Greece, curating various tributes to Asian cinema. He has participated, with video recordings and text, on a number of Asian movie releases, for Spectrum, Dekanalog and Error 4444. He has taken part as an expert on the Erasmus+ program, “Asian Cinema Education”, on the Asian Cinema Education International Journalism and Film Criticism Course.

Apart from a member of FIPRESCI and the Greek Cinema Critics Association, he is also a member of NETPAC, the Hellenic Film Academy and the Online Film Critics Association.

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

>