Two couples, ex-classmates who left university and found new partners, are briefly reunited to reminisce about old times. A boat trip along a scenic Suzhou waterway helps create a poignantly nostalgic mood.

Director Jia Zhangke says his short film was inspired by Spring in a Small Town. In the 1948 Chinese film classic the beautiful wife of an ailing elderly husband is thrown into emotional turmoil by a visit from her husband’s younger colleague. The meeting re-ignites their former attachment. Duty prevails and nothing comes of the romance. However, a mood of wistful longing pervades both films and both use a river as a metaphor for the continuity of emotion over time.

The popular song recalled in the English title of Jia’s film makes the sorrowful theme more explicit. In the first scene ex-students gather at a restaurant on a river boat to celebrate their old tutor’s birthday and a joke about tickets establishes that they have travelled from different places. The leads, all in their thirties, are expertly played by Jia regulars Zhao Tao and Wang Hongwei, also Hao Lei and Guo Xiadong who starred together in Lou Ye’s 2006 film Summer Palace (Yi He Yuan)

Banter within the ex-students group followed by more private exchanges between couples reveal their current lives are materially successful but emotionally barren. With typical use of contrasting images Jia allows a glamorous restaurant boat complete with traditional musicians to be succeeded by the shabbiness of an apartment building. 'Quaint canal-side dwellings show to advantage against the ugly angles of high-rise city blocks. The what-might-have-been' atmosphere is enhanced by a haunting soundtrack.

Cry me a River was screened with Jia’s 24 City (Ershsi Cheng Ji) in the 2008 London Film Festival