Movie Review: Bao

Bao is a 2018 animated short. The eight-minute short was played before Incredibles 2. It was directed by Domee Shi and in the eight minutes of run time it has, it goes to dark enough places to pull on your heart. I had gone to see Incredibles 2 in a cinema cafe and was honestly crying before the start of the actual movie. A bao is a part of Chinese cuisine made with various fillings in a yeast-based bun or ball and prepared in different ways. In the short, the bao seems to be filled with vegetables, rolled up, and steamed.
The short starts with an older Chinese-American woman making bao for her and her husband. Before she can eat it, one of the bao comes alive. Almost immediately, she accepts it as her child. She clearly wants one desperately and starts pampering her food.
The audience is then warmed up to the bao as he and the woman bond. She quickly forms a daily routine involving her and the bao--suspiciously void of her husband. The bao seems happy and quickly grows up. He becomes more curious and social, opting to develop a life not centered around his mother. A very typical adolescent thing to do, yet the woman takes it personally. And I get it. Over an entire decade spent doting on a small human being who has done nothing but look up to you and run into your arms every chance they get--and you're just expected to let go. It's hard. But you have to learn to let go and develop a very different relationship. This person you spent a decade coddling and another decade dictating, you have to spend the rest of your life in something similar to a loving friendship. But not letting go is even harder.
This woman refuses to let him grow. The bao pulls away and it hurts to see. You know it's completely natural but it's still so heart-wrenching. All grown up, the bao introduces his American girlfriend to his parents and announces his plan to move out. His mother is shocked and attempts to keep him inside. The bao responds by forcefully making his way out. Before he can succeed, however, the woman grabs him and chews him up. She then wakes up to see it was all a dream.
She lies on her bed, crying. Her husband brings her real-life son--who strangely resembling the bao--to make amends with her. He brings her a treat, the same treat she made for the dumpling in her dream. They make up, the short ends on a bittersweet note.
Now, the dream is clearly an analogy. Most of it is pretty clear considering the minute we get with her actual son in the end. The final scene of her dream, however, takes a bit of thinking. I would like to believe that it's referencing her suffocating him until he cut her out completely. She cries as she understands what she's done.
After their reconciliation, they form a much healthier, friendly relationship. As the short ended, I sobbed my eyes out.