If The Florida Project were to be set in Taiwan it might look a lot like Left-Handed Girl, a foreign-language drama-comedy that just so happens to be co-written by The Florida Project creator Sean Baker. 

Baker, who with Tangerine, The Florida Project, Red Rocket, and Anora has shown a penchant for bringing to life quirky yet grounded characters and letting them run wild, doesn’t direct Left-Handed Girl, but his fingerprints are all over this entertaining “life in the day” depiction in all the right ways (he also edited the film).

Director Shih-Ching Tsou, who co-wrote the story with Baker (the movie is inspired by Tsou’s childhood, and she and Baker have known each other for decades), drops us right into the action, fixating on a single and financially struggling mom and her two daughters—I-Ann, a fiercely independent young adult, and I-Jing, her adorably sweet and left-handed (“the Devil’s hand!” as her grandfather insists) child who gets into her own trouble. Very little happens to these three that seem too wildly out of the ordinary, yet thanks to the vibrant script and colorful craftsmanship by Tsou, Left-Handed Girl draws you into their ridiculously entertaining lives. 

And entertaining Left-Handed Girl is. Tsou cuts straight in, hooks you immediately, and then layers from there. The three lead characters, and those around them, are instantly believable, relatable, likable… for all their flaws and idiosyncrasies and poor decisions. 

The cast is stellar. Young Nina Ye is adorable but also incredibly talented. Janet Tsai, as the mother, is quietly captivating, casting so much emotion with solemn facial expressions. But it’s newcomer Shih-Yuan Ma as I-Ann who steals the show. Ma is phenomenal, strutting through every scene with ferocious determination even as her life crumbles around her.

Left-Handed Girl will scare some people off simply due to the subtitles, but it’s easily one of the most accessible, entertaining, and dynamic movies of 2025. 

Review by Erik Samdahl. Erik is a marketing and technology executive by day, avid movie lover by night. He is a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society.