The title captures the gentle, thoughtful vibe of this state-of-the-culture movie from China.

But that belies the vigorously creative filmmaking and subtle wit that flash throughout this must-see tale of a young college student who returns to Beijing when she learns that her aged father has cancer. The movie is ostensibly narrated by her, and her fairly acute observations conflict amusingly with the shallow adolescent we see interacting with her parents—long separated, but reunited for his treatments—and with the spurned boyfriend who follows her home from the U.K., where they were going to school. Similarly, the dad, who seems so cruelly taciturn at first, turns out to be a Mongolian transplant who dreams of his youth spent riding horses and making movies—clips of which are included in this tenderly clear-eyed ode to life. Turns out that the vacuous daughter is played by writer-director Degena Yun, who has a faultless eye for startling visual contrasts.