Every town has one. The sleazy, pay-by-the-hour motel frequented by tricks and johns, businessmen on weekend benders and families stranded on skid-row. In Michael Kang’s touching film The Motel, a thirteen year old Chinese-American boy, Ernest (newcomer Jeffrey Chyau), navigates the tumultuous rapids of pubescence while helping his single-parent family with the day to day operations of their dingy motel.
Being a self-conscious, hormonal teenager is not an envious situation to be in and Kang refuses to sentimentalize Ernest’s coming of age. Changing stained sheets and flushing spent condoms are part of Ernest’s daily routine. Ernest, who is being raised by his task-master mother, finds a father figure in Sam, a self-destructive guest of the motel. In between draining bottles of Johnny Walker and bedding as many prostitutes as his wallet will allow, Sam bonds with Ernest over late-night fried chicken binges. Sam, in an effort to redeem himself, decides to help the young boy become a man. However, not all goes according to plan.
Kang does seem to take pleasure in humiliating his characters slightly and no lessons are learned easily. One scene has Ernest and Sam pulling over on a desolate road and manically shouting “I want to be happy now!” into the night sky. However, Kang does allow some sunlight to peer into the abysmal motel. At the movie’s core is a loving immigrant family struggling to survive the tug of war of growing up in an environment that leaves little to the curious boy’s imagination.
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