Dear Mom & Dad ...

MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART (A-minus) - This lovely film from the Chinese Master Jia Zhang-ke elegantly unfolds across three decades to tell the simple story of a mother and her son.

Jia returns to his contemplative roots of his 2005 masterpiece "The World," as he continues to chronicle the evolution of 21st century China through deeply personal character studies. He hopscotches across three eras -- 1999, the present day, and 2025 -- telling the story of Shen Tao (Jia regular Tao Zhao), a wide-eyed college student who must choose between two suitors. She picks Zhang Jinsheng (Yi Zhang, also a regular) over his friend, Liangzi. Zhang is a wealthy entrepreneur, and a metaphor for the surge of capitalism in China.

Zhang names their son Dollar and seizes custody of the boy after their divorce. Liangzi, meanwhile, toils in the coal mines, to the detriment of his health. Dollar, about age 7, comes to visit his mother for the funeral of her father in the middle segment, and his prissy air of privilege rankles her. In the final segment, Dollar, now a college student, confronts his father, who has grown sullen and irascible, and a bit paranoid. Dollar wants to declare his freedom and maybe seek a reconciliation with his mother. The 2025 dialogue is in English and takes place mostly in Australia, another nod to globalization and a strain against China's culture and heritage. Dollar has forgotten much of his native tongue, and he finds a maternal fellow traveler in a middle-aged professor (Sylvia Chang), herself an ex-pat from Hong Kong. In a neat time-cheat, Dollar drives a vintage Chrysler Valiant (circa 1970).

Jia calmly unravels the spare narrative (clocking in at 131 minutes but never dragging). He's partial to explosions, eruptions and fireworks as indicators of breaks from the past. He also toys with the aspect ratio, as well. The first segment is confined to a nearly square letterboxed format; the middle segment widens to a standard ratio; the final segment -- depicting a relatively familiar-looking future -- blossoms into a widescreen format. His camera often sits still or glides slowly and sensually. This is a tender film at the opposite end of the spectrum from 2013's violence-packed "A Touch of Sin."

Shen Tao is moral center and anchor of the film. In the middle segment she hands her child a key to his childhood house, but -- corny as it sounds -- it might as well be a key to her heart. She knows that a mother-son bond eventually may give way to a father-son bond, but her connection to Dollar will always run deeper.

In the opening scene Shen Tao leads a troupe in a New Year's dance (she's a celebrated singer and entertainer); and that dance is echoed in one of the loveliest bookends a filmmaker could create. Jia is telling us that old-fashioned sentiment and homespun tradition endure. As does soulful filmmaking.

JAMES WHITE (B) - James is having a rough go of it. His father has recently died. He meets his father's second wife at the funeral. His mother is dying of cancer. And he generally can't get his personal life or career together.

It's not surprising that he acts out a lot. James is portrayed by Christopher Abbott, an exile from the early seasons of HBO's "Girls," where he was mostly a bland, goody-two-shoes plot device. Abbott reaches deep for the emotional pain that drives James as he battles to keep his head above water.

Cynthia Nixon (coincidentally, from HBO's first-gen gal-power series, "Sex and the City") has aged into the thankless role of dying middle-aged mother (like Laura Dern in "Wild"). Nixon, who just turned 50, wrings an un-embarrassing level of pathos from the part, tossing pride and decorum aside from some intense bathroom moments. She lounges comfortably in domestic scenes, especially when she is grooving to her slow jams -- Billie Holiday, Ray Charles.

Those tones clash with the harsher club music that plays as the soundtrack to James' extended fever dream. He has a habit of talking trash to women in bars and starting fights with bartenders and bouncers. His buddy Nick is helpless in trying to control him. Spiraling through a haze of hedonism and self-destruction, he strains every relationship he's in. A family friend offers him a writing gig at New York magazine, but James wakes up hungover on the morning of the interview, borrows his buddy's T-shirt and spectacularly bombs the meeting.

James develops into a pretty devoted son, honoring the "you and me against the world" bond with the woman who raised him alone. (Although the arc with his father is undercooked.) The main problem is with tone. The screenplay and the gritty visuals from debut writer/director Josh Mond are tough to connect with. James can be pretty despicable in the first half, and the raw depiction of his mother's decline might make you divert your gaze. If enough scenes make you look away, you might wonder why you've bothered to watch the movie at all.