Saving Face Reviews
Top Critic
Abjectly collapses into feel-good nonsense.
Goes beyond the obvious into something a lot more current and meaningful: the need to make your own love, even if society looks askance.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Wu has a keen ear for the rhythm of speech, and much of the humour rests in the conversations' staccato beat -- in breezy put-downs and tossed-off asides and disgruntled mutterings.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
[Saving Face] gets its heart pumping by putting its lovers smack in the middle of family and community.
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| Original Score: 3/4
A mild but mostly enjoyable romantic comedy that attempts (not always successfully) to incorporate elements of screwball farce into an already-crowded mix.
| Original Score: B
A laugh riot it is not. A sweet, true and, at times, universal love story it is.
A first film with a deft comedic touch and a trio of charming stars.
| Original Score: 3/4
This culture-clash, generation-gap comic drama is clichéd and corny. But it's also charming.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Saving Face's saving graces are its sense of humor and its strong cast.
Full Review
| Original Score: B-
It has the heart and spirit of a true romantic comedy, and a lightness of touch that you rarely see in a debut picture.
Family culture-clash romantic comedy gets a delightful twist in the funny, charming Saving Face.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
A first-time writer-director, Wu handles most of the movie with breezy confidence, drawing strong performances from all of her leading actors.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
[Chen] reduces the wattage on her luminousness to make Ma seem sympathetically homely without turning downright pitiful. It's an engaging performance.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Unexpected pregnancy and family politics can be heavy, dramatically explosive issues, but Wu tempers her direction with empathy and her script with well-placed laughs, attempting to bridge both cultural and generation gaps without alienating either.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Wu's film takes the received wisdom of The Joy Luck Club for a delightful spin through unwed motherhood, lesbianism and Chinese-American family values.
| Original Score: 3/4
By the end of the movie's hour-and-a-half, Wu's carefully tied up all loose ends and dutifully swept away any questions. It's a tidy little film, and her mother and mentors must be proud.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
A heartwarming comedy that reaffirms the power of personal choice, while also promising to love and to cherish even the most hidebound cultures.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Tender and often extremely funny, Alice Wu's delightful debut feature, Saving Face, is a Chinese-American lesbian romance that wisely explores the tug-of-war between tradition and the need to be true to one's heart.
| Original Score: 3/4
Alice Wu's debut film is so deft, natural and exquisitely specific, it feels fresh.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Alice Wu's amiable romantic comedy examines the lives of three generations of Chinese-Americans living in New York.
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| Original Score: 3/5
Despite a fairly explicit lesbian boobfest (projected attendance just went up!), the film is more good-natured than provocative.
Less burdened by earnest intentions than other indie examinations of Asian-American women's experience, the film's appealing characters and amusing situations prevail over its general shortage of energy.
A frothy delight, robust with strong and conflicted characters.
