14-year-old May is married off as the third wife to an older landowner of a rural village where silk is harvested. She soon finds that, having given birth to a son, the first wife exerts greater influence in the family than the second, who has only had three daughters, and that the only way to gain security and independence is to give birth to a male child. May conceives a child, and discovers that Xuan, the second wife, is having an affair with the landowner's son, and that the first wife is also pregnant. May is also attracted to Xuan and confesses her feelings to her, who rejects May's advances. Having discovered the affair, the landowner arranges a marriage between his son and a girl, who is even younger than May. Rejected by her new husband, who is still attached to Xuan, the girl commits suicide. The first wife has a miscarriage. May gives birth to a girl, and contemplates poisoning her. The film ends with one of Xuan's daughters, who had once expressed desire to become a man and have many wives, cutting her hair with a pair of scissors.
The film was financed in part by the Spike Lee Production Fund of the Tisch School of the Arts, which its screenplay had won in 2014. More than 900 girls were auditioned for the lead role. Tran Anh Hung provided artistic consultancy.
Release
The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2018, where it won the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema Award. In October 2018, it also screened at the San Sebastian International Film Festival, where it won the TVE-Another Look Award, and at the Chicago International Film Festival in the New Directors Film Competition section, of which it won the Gold Hugo, the top prize. In Vietnam, the film was released on 17 May 2019, only to be pulled four days later, after drawing criticism for allowing the lead actress Trà My, who was 13 at the time of shooting, to act in sex scenes. The scenes were filmed with only female crew and My's mother present on set. My also said she was protected during the filming. On 20 May, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism ordered the Cinema Department to review the licensing of the film. On 21 May, producers pulled the film from cinemas, citing concerns over online abuse that had been directed at My and her family. On 24 May, the filmmakers were fined 50 million đồng for releasing an unapproved version despite censors' request to make three cuts to the film. Mayfair described the criticism as "a silencing tactic". Regarding the decision to screen the film in Vietnam, she said, "We had to try, even though we knew we could be attacked by a lot of conservative viewpoints. This is a part of our history that is very dark and this kind of history is perpetuating itself in Vietnamese society still. There are so many artists, and specifically female artists, who don't think they can speak out. So I feel that I have done my part."
Reception
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 90%, based on 39 reviews, and an average rating of 7.11/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The Third Wife uses one woman's experiences as the framework for a reserved period drama whose haunting beauty belies its devastating impact." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 71 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
