Paul Elliott’s review published on Letterboxd:
There are excellent performances from all involved in this powerful and compelling film from director Wang Xiaoshuai, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Mei Ah. The tale's kernel is a moderately straightforward intimate family drama about grief that percolates through generations, but this serves predominately as a catalyst to apprehend more broadly the dramatic and enormous financial and social changes during the past four decades in China.
There's a vast amount featured in the three hours plus runtime which recalls films from Jia Zhanhgke, notably A Touch of Sin and Mountains May Depart, where the embedded societal changes within the narrative are sizably the story itself. Wang, who keeps the storytelling's momentum in low gear, uses the spaces between the eras and society's changing face to explore how they directly affect two families. His filmmaking style has a wide-open and observational gaze that safeguards a respectful distance at critical junctures.
There's an assuredness in the film's familiarity, and Wang displays aesthetic restraint in any unnecessary ornate embellishments. Through the profoundly delicate performances, the occasional eruptions of emotion become underscored and help acquaint the genuine breadth of the suffocating limitations of living in an authoritarian state. Additionally, the consequence of deep regret explicitly explores how it can alienate and distance previously close friends in a most insidious manner.
Large amounts of the narrative emerge via flashback which crumples and unfolds with some beautiful editing. The non-linear system regulates the story marvellously, with China's one-child policy being of particular interest to the narrative together with the degree of emotional anguish it imposed upon families. The production design and costumes elicit the vibrant breadth of time and change while maintaining its fixed and unwavering focus to develop a harsh condemnation of totalitarianism. So Long, My Son is a deeply textured, often beautiful film.