Ben and Suzanne: Love on the Rocks
Shaun Seneviratne’s Ben and Suzanne, A Reunion In 4 Parts offers a hilarious yet sobering look at a couple briefly reunited for a holiday. The film is the concluding feature of a series of three short films filmed over ten years. We follow Ben Santhanaraj (Sathya Sridharan) and Suzanne Hopper (Anastasia Olowin) as they wind across Sri Lanka in a dizzying course of events. The movie premiered at the 2024 SXSW Film & TV Festival, making it the first time a narrative feature film by a Sri Lankan director has had its world premiere in the United States.
The film follows the story of Ben, an Indian-American English high school teacher from the US, and Suzanne, an NGO worker based in Sri Lanka. It opens with a dramatic sequence of Ben rushing through the Bandaranaike International Airport with a giant bar of Toblerone chocolate, only to be stood up by his great love. The scene is only the first of many disappointments set out for Ben.
The couple set course across the island in a van colourfully decorated with twinkling lights and feathers. Some of the island’s most famous hallmarks—the Pettah Market, the Tirana video store, and the magnificent Sigiriya—are seen on screen. But their romantic road trip comes to an awkward standstill as Suzanne’s boss insists she turn in a report and Ben grows frustrated as he slowly catches onto the growing distance between them. Throughout the never-ending chaos, the duo learn more about each other, from newly adopted veganism to false promises of giving up cigarettes to realizing that there is no grand miracle that can save their love.
Ben and Suzanne, A Reunion in 4 Parts looks into a love that grows, consumes, and shudders to an end. Inspired by events in Shaun’s own life, the film was entirely self-funded by close friends and family and has been a work in progress for fourteen years. It features actors in their first roles and even Shaun’s own family. Shot entirely in Sri Lanka, the film draws from the existing landscape of the island, allowing the world around Ben and Suzanne to appear as it does in real life, making it difficult to look away. There is no scene in the movie that feels out of place. As a Sri Lankan myself, it is fascinating being able to point out places where my own feet have taken me and see them like my own memories on a screen.
The film is funny, frustrating, and real. There are moments where you’re in awe of the sheer ridiculousness of it all, cringing at an ill-timed food poisoning, then sighing to yourself and going “What a waste!“ because you’re so sure any love can be salvaged. Ben’s earnestness to love feels almost painful to witness, as does Suzanne’s earnestness to be seen. There are quiet instances when you look at them and understand what it means to be human.
Ben and Suzzane, A Reunion in 4 Parts provides commentary on what it means to love and to be loved. It asks the bigger question about what it means to be good, to be known, and to truly belong. We see Ben and Suzanne caught in the rifts between love, duty, and time. We see them question what they owe to one another, themselves, and this world that has pushed them together. Their story remains a testament to what one witnesses in love and what can come out of it in the end. To love is an act of duty. Ben and Suzanne show us it is true.