Ali & Ratu Ratu Queens is an Indonesian comedy-drama film directed by Lucky Kuswandi.
Following the death of his father, Jakartan teenager Ali (Iqbal Dhiafakhri Ramadhan) travels to New York City to find his estranged mother Mia (Melissa Anita), who seemingly abandoned him as a child. Arriving at his mother's old apartment, however, Ali finds not her, but a quartet of middle-aged Indonesian women: kind and practical house cleaner Party (Nirina Zubir), loud hustler Biyah (Asri Welas), eccentric hippie masseuse Chinta (Happy Salma), and brash line cook Ajeng (Tika Panggabean). The four "Queens" aim to open their own restaurant and take him under their wing, vowing to help him find and reconcile with his mother.
The film was released on Netflix on June 17, 2021.
Tropes:
- Big Applesauce: The bulk of the film is set in an idealized New York. Ali immediately finds a surrogate family and falls in love with the business of the city, and every stranger on the street is helpful and kind.
- Big Damn Reunion: Subverted. Ali travels to America hoping for a joyful reunion with his estranged mother. What he gets instead is a realistic response from a woman who had left her past behind: she is extremely reluctant to accept him as part of her life and pushes him away.
- "Double, Double" Title: Ali & Ratu Ratu Queens is a threefer, with "ratu" equivalent to "queen" in Indonesian. The quartet of women refer to themselves as the "queens of Queens".
- Family of Choice: A running theme. The four women are best friends who live together and consider each other family. Ali is hung up on the idea of his biological mother, but when that falls through, he remembers that the Queens have basically been his family the whole time.
- Fashion-Shop Fashion Show: The four women take Ali to a thrift store to get him more clothes. There is a montage where he tries on outfits each of them pick. Eventually Eva shows up and gets him a decent outfit.
- Four-Girl Ensemble: The Queens, a group of old friends on the cusp of opening their own restaurant:
- Party is the admirable, motherly one; she's easily the most normal of the four of them and does the most connecting with Mia.
- Chinta is the pretty one; she's a Granola Girl with a storied romantic and sexual history.
- Ajeng is the tomboyish one; she's brash, tough, and dresses the most masculine.
- Biyah is the funny one; she has a loud sense of humor and the most physical comedy of the four.
- The Kindness of Strangers: Realizing that Ali is feeling down following his unsuccessful first meeting with his mother after many years, the women take him out to get dinner at a food truck. The woman in front of him offers words of comfort, and the cook gives him free food after realizing that Ali is also Muslim. This — plus the "You Belong Here" sticker Chinta sees on a lamppost — does a lot to lift Ali's spirits.
- Granola Girl: Chinta is a middle-aged Asian version; she's a masseuse concerned with chakra flow and the "vibrations" of the morning sun, looks for signs from the universe, and is even introduced analyzing the feng shui of their would-be restaurant. She also eats a lot of plant-based food if the others' comments about having grass for dinner is anything to go by.
- Like Parent, Like Spouse: It's not commented on, but it's not coincidental that Ali's love interest Eva is a singer-songwriter when his mother initially left him to become a singer herself.
- A Minor Kidroduction: The film opens with young Ali bidding goodbye to his mother. Cut to sometime later and Ali watches his parents argue on the phone. And cut again to around a decade later when a now-teenage Ali is cleaning up following his father's death.
- Secret Other Family: Unbeknownst to Ali, his mother Mia has started a new family in America; they are unaware of his existence.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Mia's love of rendang shows up consistently; Ali makes it to gift to her for their first meeting and she praises Party's rendang at Thanksgiving.
