Leaving Mom

‘Mom, I want to throw you away’ — ten-year-old Hoang says this not out of cruelty, but desperation. His mother, suffering from dementia, is slowly forgetting her son, while their dilapidated houseboat barely stays afloat. The 2025 Vietnamese drama transforms a daily struggle for survival into a parable about love, duty, and the impossibility of letting go. Director Pham Ngoc Lan avoids sentimentality, showing how childhood naivety collides with adult responsibility. Each of their days is a balancing act between hope and acceptance of the inevitable, where the river is both home and prison.