A third of Singaporeans own pets—yet how many know what to do when they die? In a city built on order, grief is an unscheduled disruption. ESKY, Lawrence Wong’s directorial debut, isn’t here to offer answers. It’s here to ask a harder question: Why are we so comfortable avoiding sadness altogether?
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Born from the loss of his own cat and crafted as part of SOSD Singapore’s HOMEBOUND anthology, Wong’s film doesn’t just depict grief—it dissects Singapore’s relationship with emotional expression. This isn’t merely a pet story. It’s a quiet revolution against our collective discomfort with loss.
Most commercial films treat loss in predictable ways: melodramatic wailing or stoic suffering. ESKY rejects both extremes entirely. Instead, it lingers on what Wong calls the “mundane ghosts”—the empty leash hook, the second egg boiled out of habit, the phantom padding of paws across familiar floors.
The film’s power lies in these understated moments that resist cinematic convention. In one scene, a character methodically prepares breakfast for a pet that’s no longer there. No music swells to guide your emotions. No tears fall on cue. The silence isn’t just artistic choice—it’s an indictment of how we demand grief to perform on schedule.
“Industry editors would’ve cut those ‘awkward’ silences,” Wong admits in recent interviews. “But grief isn’t efficient. It’s what happens when you forget, then remember, then forget again in the space of making morning coffee.”
This approach represents something genuinely fresh in regional cinema, where emotional beats often follow prescribed formulas. Wong’s background in commercial work paradoxically freed him to ignore commercial instincts entirely.
This film won’t resolve your grief. It won’t even attempt to. In a world that sells emotional closure like a self-help subscription service, the movie’s power lies in its refusal to fix anything at all.
Instead, it offers something more valuable and far more rare: permission. Permission to mourn imperfectly, slowly, and without apology. Permission to let some experiences remain unresolved rather than forcing them into neat narrative packages.
Wong’s directorial debut operates as both intimate portrait and cultural critique. It’s simultaneously the smallest possible story—one person’s relationship with loss—and an enormous challenge to how an entire society processes emotion. The film suggests that some ghosts don’t need exorcising. They just need to be acknowledged as part of the landscape of being human.
For Singapore’s emerging film culture, Lawrence Wong’s ESKY represents something significant: local storytelling that trusts audiences with complexity rather than feeding them simplified emotions. It’s cinema that respects both the subject matter and the viewer enough to resist easy answers, creating space for the kind of conversations that genuine art should inspire.
