Film

The Third Wife

Name: The Third Wife
Genre: Drama
Released: 2019
Cast: Nguyen Phuong Tra My, Trần Nữ Yên Khê, Lê Vũ Long, Như Quỳnh, Maya

Period drama

A 14-year-old girl becomes the third wife of a wealthy landowner in 1950s Vietnam. Director Ash Mayfair's debut is a visual feast of mist-shrouded landscapes and silk textiles, but it's the psychological drama that grips—watching a child navigate power, sexuality, and agency in a system designed to contain her. Hypnotic and deeply unsettling.

TMDb rating

3.3

If you liked this

The Handmaiden2016

A layered tale of women navigating desire and survival within oppressive structures. Like The Third Wife, it's visually sumptuous and morally complex, turning what could be simple into something that rewires your brain.

But It's lengthy and intricate; if you're not invested in its puzzle-box plotting, the slow unfold might test your patience. Also contains graphic sexual content.

The Piano1993

Jane Campion's masterpiece about a mute woman forced into marriage in colonial New Zealand. It shares The Third Wife's fascination with desire kindling in confined circumstances and the power of the body when words are forbidden.

But The pacing is deliberate to the point of stasis if you want momentum. The ending divides viewers sharply on what it means.

Mulholland Drive2001

Lynch's spiral into Hollywood's darkness has the same dreamlike inevitability as The Third Wife—a sense that reality is slipping, identities are unstable, and something terrible is unfolding beneath surfaces. Stunning and hypnotic.

But It's cryptic and demands active interpretation. If you need clarity and forward momentum, this will frustrate you.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Third Wife

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Portrait of a Lady1996

Both are period pieces by female directors obsessed with female interiority, but The Portrait of a Lady is 19th-century Europe, intellectual and wordy; The Third Wife is contemporary Vietnam, silent and sensual. Different languages, same hunger.

Jane Campion adapted James across centuries to ask the same question The Third Wife does: what happens when a young woman with agency enters a marriage designed to constrain her? It's literature transformed into visual poetry, lush and psychological.

But It's a 144-minute literary adaptation from the 90s that moves at its own pace. If you want action or clarity, this is austere and elliptical.

The Double Life of Véronique1991

Kieslowski's gorgeous meditation on fate, identity, and women's inner lives. It shares The Third Wife's sensual visual language and its belief that the deepest drama happens in silence and glances.

But Plot barely exists; it's mood and metaphor. Very slow. If you prefer narrative propulsion, this is not your film.

Phantom Thread2017

PTA's unsettling study of a woman entering a marriage that's also a power struggle. Like The Third Wife, it's gorgeous and claustrophobic, with a young woman discovering agency in a relationship that seems designed to erase it.

But Some find it glacial and airless; the repeated patterns can feel like torture rather than revelation. The romance elements are dark.

Shoplifters2018

Hirokazu Koreeda's tender, devastating portrait of a makeshift family. It shares The Third Wife's ability to find grace and joy within hardship and its trust in visual storytelling over exposition.

But If you want plot, you'll go hungry. It's a mood piece about ordinary moments, and its emotional payoff demands patience and openness.

The Wailing2016

Na Hong-jin's Korean horror-thriller spirals with the same unsettling dread as The Third Wife. Both films suggest that chaos can bloom from a single act, and that moral certainty is a luxury.

But It's long, deliberately obscure, and the genre shifts violently. You'll finish uncertain what you've witnessed—intentional, but maddening for some.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer2017

Lanthimos builds unbearable tension from an offscreen act and its inexorable consequences. Like The Third Wife, it finds horror in the domestic and explores how systems—family, fate—trap the innocent.

But It's mechanically cold and Greek-tragedy-bleak. If you need warmth or hope, you won't find it. The pacing is intentionally stilted.

In the Mood for Love2000

Wong Kar-wai's meditation on desire and restraint in 1960s Hong Kong. It matches The Third Wife's visual rapture and its understanding that sometimes the most erotic films are those where bodies rarely touch.

But It prioritizes mood and colour over narrative. Some viewers find it precious rather than moving; the repetition can read as self-indulgent.