Children of Invention: Realism

I believe that the film directed by Tze Chun and titled Children of Invention is an excellent example of a piece of work that blatantly exemplifies the literary term and concept of realism.  By definition realism is a "form of fiction that provides a 'slice of life,' an accurate representation of reality."  The movie depicts the reality of life for Elaine and her children in her attempts and failures at multiple get-rich-quick schemes.  The audience witnesses both the excitement of the marketing opportunities and also the devastation of the characters when these pyramid schemes fall apart.  This rational look into life of foreign-Americans trying to support their families in any way they can is what makes Children of Invention a piece of realism.  There is another aspect to a more detailed definition of realism that claims that "it usually refers more specifically to a writer's accuracy in portraying the speech and behavior of a character or characters from a low socioeconomic class."  This feature gives even more evidence to the idea of seeing the film as a piece of realism.  Elaine and her children are indeed of low socioeconomic class, as Tze Chun depicts them excellently to be of Chinese decent. The foreign mother has an accent and is so clearly naiive to the trickery that takes place in American society, especially to those of her stature, and the American-Chinese children who although look like their mother do not talk like their mother seem to have more potential in American society as they grow up having learned from their mother's mistakes.  Children of Invention lends itself completely to these common definitions of realism in literature, even though it is not a piece of written work.