Movie Review: Noble

With a week's worth of movies already reviewed and scheduled for posting, I wanted to stray away from my list and watch a non-horror movie. I picked Noble. The film is set in Vietnam in 1989, fourteen years after the end of the war. Christina Noble flies into Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). She's there to follow her life's calling.

She meets these two little girls who are fending for themselves by digging through garbage. It takes her back to when she used to do that, after her mother died, right up until the police came and took her and siblings. They are tried for truancy and other violations. Christina is separated from her siblings and sent to a Catholic orphanage.

In Vietnam, she's met with more adversity as she tries to help the children there.

Back in Ireland, she's out of the orphanage and trying to get a job. She pretends to have a home by barging in like a candygram as her peers watch. She goes to the opera. While trying to climb over a gate on her way back, she's grabbed by four men and dragged into a building. Soon after, one of the nuns tells her that she's pregnant. At 17, she gives birth to her son Thomas. He is forced away from her and adopted off. She was tricked into signing the adoption papers by the nuns and becomes so enraged that she slaps one of the nuns and angrily speaks at the chapel.

Back in Vietnam, she gets help from some Vietnamese people. One man being placed as her bodyguard of sorts. As they ride through on a motorcycle, she sees poverty and destitution and all that brings to a place, prostitution for example. She gets approved to work with the children for three months. She lives her nice hotel to live with the children in a dwelling worse than hers, but better than the streets. Christina gets herself into a fancy shindig by following an Irishman in and she pitches her plans to him. Lam, one of the children, tells her about how his mother's boyfriend had beaten them.

Christina begins a relationship with an attractive Italian man named Mario. He buys the fish and chips shop she works at. He renames it Mario's, which displeases her. Five years and three kids later, she works her fingers to the bone while her husband's out cheating on her. She watches the news of the Vietnam War and watches a little boy walking around with a gun and a helmet. Mario and Christina get into a fight and he leaves. He gets into an accident, breaking his arm. She goes after his mistress and after the woman calls her a "fish wife", Christina hits her in the face with a broom and dumps the bucket of soapy water on her. It was pretty hilarious, right up until Mario beat her for it. She has a dream about Vietnam and the children there. It's her epiphany.

Back in Vietnam, someone brings a baby to them and they name her Mai. Christina's aid tells her that if a baby is born with any type of defect, they are usually left in the garbage. Christina sings in clubs and asks for donations. She meets up with the Irishman Jerry and he kind of shadows her. Lam wakes Christina up because something is happening. They see Christina's partner David Summers going into a hotel with a 10-year-old girl. She pitches the building of a center for the kids to Jerry and a few other suits. Mai doesn't make it. She hangs a tag on the tree outside that says Baby Mai, Rest in Peace, just like the tag hung outside of her home after her mother's death. Lam's mom has kicked her boyfriend out and he gets to go home. David Summers wrecks the children's center, but they can't do anything about it because there's no proof of either indiscretion. Christina has her favorite hotel receptionist go through his hotel room. He finds photos of young girls in his drawer. Jerry shows up just as Christina's about to set off back to London and says his company is willing to donate $20,000 to her cause. Three policeman barge into David Summers hotel room and arrest him.

This movie was truly good. Every aspect of the film was wonderful and I'd very highly recommend it.

"Let's see what your heart can do in three months.