The Sympathizer–Displaced Sympathies

Based upon the 2016 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Viet Thanh Nguyen,  The Sympathizer opens in April 1975, during the fall of Saigon.  This American War– or Vietnam War, depending upon perspective,– unflinchingly depicts the ignominious and callous withdrawal of American troops and their Vietnamese aids on helicopters and ships crammed with desperate people fleeing the country, often in the middle of the night.

Straddling both countries on different sides of the Pacific,  The Sympathizer flashes back and forth rapidly, in sharp cinematic cuts, from 1975 until the present.   The protagonist is the Captain (newcomer Hoa Xuande), a double agent, born of a French Catholic priest and a Vietnamese mother, who emigrates to America. He has promised to return  to Vietnam as a secret police officer.  He serves three masters: 1) a former South Vietnamese general who leads southern California’s Vietnamese expat community in an autocratic attempt to take back Vietnam from the Communists; 2) the top CIA agent  in South Vietnam (played by Robert Downey, Jr); and 3) one of the top Communist colonels in Ho Chi Minh City’s reeducation camp, Man (played by Vietnamese-American Duy Nguyen,  a current Nevada Assemblyman). 

The Captain’s multiple roles are narrated as a confession in “reeducation” camp:  to Man, the military colonel and a former childhood friend.  Part of the Captain’s defense as a loyal Communist is that he helped guide the propaganda movie à la  “Apocalypse Now” to a more balanced perspective.  Under his direction, Vietnamese villagers are given a voice,  instead of remaining silent or grateful for the white American “rescue”.   Communist colonel Man, his former friend who demands his reeducation,  is not sympathetic.

The Captain has mixed loyalties in identifying as bicultural: both American and Vietnamese, white and Asian. His ideological commitments are not established facts but blurred and fluid.  Not Vietnamese enough for Communist Vietnam nor American enough for the white community in Los Angeles,  the Captain is forced into  a psychological and bicultural displacement. To survive he must avoid suspicion and constantly code-switch from one culture to the other.  

The character of Miss Mori (played often hilariously by Sandra Oh),  challenges another imputed identity of Asian immigrants and Asian Americans.   She is the Captain’s lover and  also  an administrative assistant to  the racist Prof. Hammer (also played by Downey).  Satirizing  what can only be a deeply searing take-down of what it is like to be a Japanese American in the Department of Oriental Studies at a major university,  Miss Mori excoriates the prejudice and cultural stereotypes of university “intellectuals”.  

Viet Thanh Nguyen has written: “All wars are fought twice: the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory.” For  the Captain this means not only the escape from the actual war but also the memory of what that war means, and how  war and his former homeland exist in his memory. 

The cast is superb.   A dexterous feat of acting and screen adaptation of the novel, The Sympathizer belongs equally to both Hoa Xuande as the Captain and Robert Downey Jr. in his four multiple characters of American predatory personalities.   And even minor characters, such as the aged mother of a secret police officer, played by 86-year old Kieu Chinh, Vietnam’s best known actress before the war, are a marvel to watch.   

The Sympathizer  is an emotionally honest, historical recovery of what actually happened in the Vietnam War/American War.  Without this new depiction of what transpired, the mythologizing and terror of war continues. A much deeper meaning exists for those who watch beyond the ostensible plot.  Reading the novel, to which the adaptation adheres closely, helps with following the scenes and intricately layered narrative.

Availability:  HBOMax

Note: The Sympathizer,   one of my favorite novels of all time, sweeps the reader into a wave of concurrent and conflicting emotions.  While the screen adaptation retains the same tone, it also adds a generous, achingly funny one as well.