Difficult though it may be to accept, love takes work, and sometimes the love we feel for someone shifts with the changing tides of our own identities and ideas. Writer/director Shaun Seneviratne explores this harsh truth about love in his feature film debut, Ben and Suzanne, A Reunion in 4 Parts, the follow-up to his three-part “Tourists Cycle.” The story of a couple coming to grips with the changing dynamics of their relationship, Seneviratne’s romantic drama/comedy follows the two titular Americans as they try vacationing together in beautiful Sri Lanka. Lingering between them is the memory of the relationship they once had and the growing divide that threatens to tear them apart. As the audience takes this trek through Sri Lanka with Ben and Suzanne, the question remains: will they be able to salvage this once beautiful thing, or are they both better off letting it go?
The movie opens with Ben, toting around an oversized Toblerone and wide-eyed with excitement after an hours-long journey from the US to Sri Lanka, ready to reunite with his long-distance partner, Suzanne. Suzanne, also an American, works for a small NGO, a microcreditor that helps finance small, woman-owned businesses in the developing country. Their reunion gets off to a rocky start when Ben is informed that Suzanne won’t be there to greet him; in fact, her employer is demanding she continue to work throughout their vacation.
This rocky start carries over into an awkward 10 days as Ben’s carefree spirit gets tamped down by the harsh reality of Suzanne’s situation: she may want to throw caution to the wind and, as Ben suggests, “delete everything,” but doing so jeopardizes her dream of making a difference in the world. Her loyalty to the idea of doing good—even if the “good” she’s doing is questionable—trumps her feelings for Ben, not because she doesn’t love him but because circumstance has forced her to let one want to supersede the other.
Authentic Performances Make Ben and Suzanne Feel Realistic
Ben and Suzanne: A Reunion in 4 Parts
4/5
- Release Date
- March 11, 2024
- Director
- Shaun Seneviratne
- Cast
- Sathya Sridharan , Anastasia Olowin
- Runtime
- 109 Minutes
- Writers
- Shaun Seneviratne
- The chemistry between the two leads is excellent.
- Using several people who are not professional actors lends to the authenticity of the film.
- The film is a realistic look at love and the difficulty in making a relationship work.
- Due to both narrative and technical choices, some viewers may wish to see more of Sri Lanka than what’s provided here.
- The four-act structure feels like a gimmick and takes away from the story.
Sathya Sridharan and Anastasia Olowin have delightful chemistry as Ben and Suzanne. Their relationship is struggling, a symptom of their separation or maybe of the greater ideological divide that has grown between them. And yet it’s clear that the two still care for one another; the ghost of the relationship they once had makes itself known in several moments of connection.
They make each other smile and laugh in a truly genuine way, just as much as they discomfort and even hurt. For every argument, there’s an understanding and a demonstration of why these two were ever together in the first place. Building from their previous turns as these characters in “Tourists,” “The Chill of Loneliness,” and “The Noble Intentions of Suzanne Hopper,” Sridharan and Olowin are well cast as a couple on the brink of collapse.
Though Sridharan and Olowin are rightly the focus of Ben and Suzanne, their driver, Mohammed, is perhaps the standout. His funny dialogue and insightful questions remind Ben and Suzanne of concerns they’ve likely already considered about their relationship, such as the decision not to have kids that Ben clearly no longer agrees with. The actor playing Mohammed, Mohammed Faizal, is, like most of the characters in the film, not a professional actor, and the authenticity of his person lends itself to the film’s overall commitment to feeling like real life.
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The Wonder and Beauty of Sri Lanka
Shot on location in Sri Lanka, Ben and Suzanne demonstrates Seneviratne’s talent for capturing everyday life in this far-away country. Because while Ben is here on vacation, his and our vision of it is severely truncated by Suzanne’s experience. She’s called Sri Lanka home long enough that its beauty and exoticism have been stripped away and normalized into the humdrum of everyday life. And so, we see Sri Lanka not through sweeping vistas and Instagram-worthy tourist spots but through walks through a marketplace, trips to small shops selling movies or electronics, and Suzanne’s own small home that lacks expected amenities like a stove.
For every small, neon-hued pool hall and sweeping field of greenery, the grandeur is missing. Even when we visit some of Sri Lanka’s most famous places—such as Ben’s solo trip to Sigirya or the couple’s beach day in Hikkaduwa—the experience is colored by the man’s depressed attitude. Like Ben, the audience can’t enjoy these exciting locales to the fullest. While it makes sense why Seneviratne chose to show Sri Lanka this way (not only from this narrative perspective but from a technical one, too), some viewers may find themselves longing for a more expansive approach to filming this exotic location.
Ben and Suzanne’s Overt Structure Feels Unnecessary
Their ten-day journey is divided not only by days but also by the titular four parts that variously inform the audience of the character’s feelings and the overall progression of the story. While it’s understandable to want to break up the story this way, that structure feels less like an important addition and more like a crutch demanded by the title. Do we need to feel the passage of time through title cards that tell us the date and those indicating these different acts? And what, exactly, does the separation of those acts entail? It’s not entirely clear what the four-act structure is doing for Ben and Suzanne, making it feel a bit gimmicky and more distracting than was surely intended.
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Ben and Suzanne is the End of a Longer Story
Ben and Suzanne, A Reunion in 4 Parts is a follow-up to Seneviratne’s Tourists Cycle, three short films that show Ben and Suzanne throughout the earlier days of their relationship. While it isn’t imperative to see the shorts first, seeing Ben and Suzanne in this pivotal moment of their relationship informs their characterization in the full film and enriches the experiences they have. The added context broadens the characters, revealing who they were before this pivotal moment in their relationship and providing a litmus test for how much they’ve changed over the years.
The Ben and Suzanne of Ben and Suzanne have had time to argue, to stew, enough time apart that they have the space to really question what this relationship means to them and if they can or should continue to choose one another. They aren’t soulmates in some pedantic sense of the word; they recognize that being together takes work, work only exacerbated by their circumstances. Without Tourists and its sequels, Ben and Suzanne feels like a story of a couple unsure of where they stand; with them, it becomes clear that this vacation is one final grasp at love.
An Honest Look at Modern Love
An intimate, honest portrait of the challenges and triumphs romance brings, Ben and Suzanne, A Reunion in 4 Parts is a funny reminder of love’s many forms. The film’s indie, lo-fi aesthetic is inhabited by realistic characters and shows Sri Lanka’s beauty through a personal lens. Unlike a typical romantic comedy, Ben and Suzanne is open about the nature of love, about the work it takes to be and stay in love. The titular characters’ love is beautiful not only because, as Suzanne puts it, they “choose each other” but also because it recognizes that that choice is continuous, that people can and do grow apart romantically, and that that doesn’t have to be the end. Perhaps a bit overlong and bogged down by its structure, Ben and Suzanne is nevertheless worth a watch for its bittersweet take on modern romance. Ben and Suzanne, A Reunion in 4 Parts premiered at South by Southwest Film Festival on Mar. 11, 2024.
