Since the movie revolves around the relationships between the silver-haired matriarch and her family members, we were curious to find out more about Usha’s bond with her own grandkids.
Amah’s affection for her four grandchildren is evident.
Her eyes light up as she tells us about them in Thai through an interpreter: “My [eldest] grandkids are twins. They were my daughter’s first kids, so they stayed with me and I took care of the boys… until they started primary school at seven. They are now 28 years old. One is married and other is still single.”
“Whenever I meet them, I will kiss and hug them because they are my dears,” she adds.
When ask if the twins visit her often, Amah explains that they are busy with work, but her two younger grandkids, who have moved from Hat Yai to Bangkok, do.
“The boy is now studying architecture at Chulalongkorn University, and the girl is still finishing her school at Assumption Convent School,” Amah says proudly.
Director Pat also shared insights into his relationship with his 92-year-old grandmother.
“My grandmother is exactly like the Amah portrayed in the movie because I [wouldn’t be able to] direct any other kind of grandmother. My grandmother is very tough, she never says she loves anyone, never touches, and never hugs,” he says.
Interestingly, Usha is quite the opposite of her on-screen character, notes Pat.
“Usha is always touching [us], and she’s very sweet. She also dresses very fashionably,” he says with a grin.
That much is evident during our interview, where we see Usha occasionally reaching out for Pat and smiling at him like a doting grandma.
If you’ve watched the film, you’d notice, maybe belatedly, that Amah’s pomegranate plant is a telling symbol of how much she loves M. Only M can eat the pomegranate as it was planted when he was born.
As it turns out, this was inspired by Pat’s own grandmother, who has a cherished pomegranate tree.
“She always saves the pomegranate for… I don’t know who, but it’s for someone in the house. She took really good care of the pomegranate tree. We still have it now, it’s very small because it was grown in a pot, but it bears a lot of fruit,” he recalls.
He tells us the film’s ‘middle-generation characters’ — M’s mum and uncles — are also modelled after his cousins.
“It’s impossible for me to direct this movie without including the real characters of people in my life, ‘cos that’s the only way I can be precise about it,” he adds.