After a Chinese construction worker dies in a worksite accident, his wife travels from China to collect his remains. When an international school decides to implement a Dream Device into the curriculum, students are asked to get their parents’ approval. “One Hour to Daylight” uses these two events to connect four groups of people together, weaving a touching social drama out of four local short stories.
As expected, when dealing with multiple threads in a film, the pacing can become slightly awkward and some of the storylines are not tied off convincingly. One such example is Andy’s argument with his wife Tia, about implementing the Dream Device in their daughter’s body. At first, the argument seems to end in a stalemate, and just as Andy is about to leave, he hears a door open. The scene then cuts to Dela, their daughter, entering their bedroom to find them asleep, with the Dream Device activated. Even while they are sleeping, the argument continues, which ironically echoes Tia’s point that Dela will feel stressed even when she’s asleep if they agree to implement the Dream Device in her body. Yet this argument does not seem to come to a proper conclusion, and in a later scene Andy is sending Dela to school, but the Dream Device is never mentioned again.
Despite struggling to balance four storylines happening at the same time, “Daylight” manages to tie them in thematically, creating a version of Singapore that is uncompromisingly realistic but with a glimmer of hope for the future.
The three children in the film seem to come from broken or damaged families - Dela’s parents are constantly fighting, Alyssa often gets into arguments with her grandparents, Wei Ting’s father is unemployed and decides to rob a bank. However, to say that they come from broken families is not necessarily correct. While the older generations are haunted by their past and hope to provide a better future for their children, they pile their hopes on them, resulting in tension and conflict in the families. But when in trouble, they band together to protect the children, and it is their actions that prove love is not always expressed verbally or through material gifts.
Personally, I find the relationship between the two robbers to be one of the highlights of the film, especially after Hock Siong finds out that the police are looking for Nayeem to assist in their investigation. He realizes that it will mostly lead to Nayeem being deported out of Singapore, so he gives Nayeem the entire bag of money, even though he needs the money too. These two characters that started out as a sort of comic relief, as their plans to commit robbery are foiled by hilarious situations, soon turn into an unlikely brotherhood, which shows that we are capable of acceptance and understanding, despite our differences.
“It’s amazing what we have achieved in fifty years”, says one of the characters, as she stares at a beautiful view of the city skyline. Indeed it is. But what have we sacrificed in the process? The impact of “One Hour to Daylight” comes not from its brutally honest portrayal of racism and xenophobia in our society, but in making you question what we have given up in our pursuit of material wealth. And maybe, as we wander about in this world, in search of our identity as a nation, we are close to making a change.
★★★ (3 stars out of 5)
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