SCFF 2025 Film Review: SHE SAT THERE LIKE ALL ORDINARY ONES

“All motion is relative. As long as someone is moving faster, you are lagging behind.”
This is one of the opening lines to She Sat There Like All Ordinary Ones, the feature debut for filmmaker Qu Youjia. It is the start of the senior year, and we are introduced to Zhuang, an easy-going student who finds himself caught in his own worry-free attitude. In an incident revolving around a starter gun, he comes across Meng, a classmate whose thoughts of her own immediate future are as in flux – just like Zhuang’s. As these two heavily contrasting personalities intertwine, we see how they slowly rub off and affect one another, as they are pushed towards the end of this particular chapter in their lives.

As a coming of age, end-of-adolescence story, Qu Youjia approaches this film with an expressionistic glint to his storytelling style. It is clear that he is fully confident in the film form, his usage of match cuts, sharp rack focuses and carefully staged long takes portray a cinematic environment that is grounded, yet briefly showcases some flights of fancy and some wandering thoughts.
Building off of this general sensation, the main leads, Zhang Taiwen as Zhuang and Jijun Miao as Meng, work well in all their scenes together. Zhuang’s carefree nature and Meng’s closed-off, cold-shoulder temperament create a dynamic and constantly bubbling chemistry. However, one thing that She Sat There Like All Ordinary Ones does really well is in building the environment that these two characters are molded from and live in. During the moments when the film focuses on only Zhang or Meng, we see how their daily lives and the people around them affect the way they see the world, further fueling their disagreements.

But what is this movie trying to say? Certainly more than just an encouragement to have your life planned out during your school years. It’s an exploration and validation of the sense of unease that permeates during that specific point of time in one’s life, the ending of a significant chapter and the start of another. Zhuang and Meng “come of age” in their own ways during this specific year, and the movie is both sentimental of what they will lose, and excited for what is in store for them.

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SCFF 2025 Film Review: SHE SAT THERE LIKE ALL ORDINARY ONES

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