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Critics Consensus: A charming tale of a love affair that overcomes cultural taboos.
Critic Consensus: A charming tale of a love affair that overcomes cultural taboos.
All Critics (85) | Top Critics (30) | Fresh (73) | Rotten (12) | DVD (5)
Abjectly collapses into feel-good nonsense.
The message here, as in every quirky ethnic romantic comedy, is 'follow your heart.' But wouldn't it be great if for once the characters cared more about the continuity of antiquated cultural traditions than their own personal happiness?
Goes beyond the obvious into something a lot more current and meaningful: the need to make your own love, even if society looks askance.
Saves face with terrific performances.
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.
[Saving Face] gets its heart pumping by putting its lovers smack in the middle of family and community.
Although everyone seems to be trying very hard, it has a deadly earnestness that squashes any fun flat.
Chinese-American mom and daughter reconnect.
Wu has abundant affection for her characters and a sharp eye for how they interact.
Exudes the kind of warmth and intelligence that delivers to well-defined segments of the indie-oriented audience.
If that sounds supremely sitcomy, well, it is. But Wu and her cast elevate the proceedings.
There's a wedding, a death and two love affairs in Saving Face, and they all come as a surprise
Absolutely delightful. An American-Born-Chinese lesbian finds her world rocked when her widowed mother is disowned for getting pregnant out of wedlock. The story subverts stereotypes about race, gender, sexuality, and age, but it never seems to do too much. Enough time is spent on major and minor characters and plots. The end teeters on Joy Luck Club-level saccharine, but the performances are all nuanced and the bilingual script is seamless in mixing the elders' traditional Mandarin and the ABCs' mix of English and broken Mandarin. There is the requisite nagging Tiger Mom we've come to expect from Asian culture clash films, but Joan Chen brings a quieter, more sensual layer as well, since Ma is also back on the market. Michelle Krusiec, as the surgeon daughter, is brilliantly still and funny in a serious way. There are even a few mannerisms of hers that I know I do/did in my one short film acting experience. She, along with Carey Mulligan and Emmanuelle Béart, are actresses whose faces I'd like to wear, "Silence-of-the-Lambs"-style.
Super Reviewer
An American-born Chinese doctor falls into a lesbian relationship with a woman who rejects the strictures of their shared culture against the backdrop of her mother's scandalous pregnancy. The first act of this film is positively delightful, a Chinese version of Imagine Me and You. Michelle Krusiec is a gem as Wil, full of quick wit and a reserved sexuality. Joan Chen perfectly captures the type of Chinese mom I've seen in real life, commanding yet somehow behind the times enough to make one cautious to rebel, feeling a sense of respect we automatically associate to antiquity. And Lynn Chen is the perfect leading lady to Krusiec's character. The film is about all the things one might expect, prejudice, modernity, and the need to rebel against the mores of the past. Obviously, these themes aren't new, but they seem fresh through writer/director Alice Wu's lens. The second and third acts were a little slow; it was almost as though the film had to stop to unravel itself, and the sharp, charming wit of the first act slipped away. Overall, Saving Face is a delightful film, and I hope to see more of Krusiec.
Ok, so when I first heard of this, the plot sort of threw me for a loop. Chinese lesbian? 50-year-old unmarried pregnant mother? This is risky stuff! But really, it's just poor man's Ang Lee. Given the plot, Alice Wu makes it seem as low-key as possible, which I guess is kind of the point? but doesn't make it any more interesting. It's a tolerable kind of movie.
Pretty good movie.
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