Saving Face (2004), Alice Wu’s debut film, is rich with sitcom trappings, and at times can’t help itself from skittering into farce when it oughtn’t. But it’s never insincere, and it has palpable care for and emotional perceptiveness around its characters that keeps you invested even when some of its narrative decisions stretch credulity.
Saving Face is about a mother and daughter entering the early stages of major life change at just about the same moment. The mother, Gao (Joan Chen), is a 48-year-old Chinese immigrant who discovers she’s pregnant. Because his identity would more than likely induce even more pearl-clutching than having a child out of wedlock among her traditionalist milieu, she won’t tell anybody who the father is. What would her father (Jin Wang), already moved to disown her for the unwed pregnancy itself, say?
Gao moves in with her daughter, Wil (Michelle Krusiec), a talented young surgeon who, early in the movie, starts seriously dating a dancer, Vivian (Lynn Chen). It’s clear pretty quickly that it’s likely going to get serious — a co-worker of Wil’s can’t help but make a point that the only other time she’s been this smiley all the time is during surgery — which is more a cause for panic than excitement. Vivian is, for one thing, her boss’ daughter. But Gao, who once walked in on Wil in a compromising position, has never accepted her daughter’s sexuality. Gao is so adamant about it being a passing thing — convinced no daughter of hers would be gay — that it’s practically become a hobby of hers setting Wil up on dates with guys she’s worried Wil dresses more boyishly than. Gao’s lack of acceptance is one force making it impossible for Wil to feel comfortable in her sexuality when a door isn’t shut behind her.
Saving Face has some surprises: the late-movie reveal of Gao’s baby daddy; a clever mirroring of The Graduate (1967) I won’t spoil here. But generally it embodies so many predictable (albeit still-well-deployed) narrative beats — usually ones helping underline the power of going with your heart over stifling expectation — that the film tends to feel freshest when dwelling in the more capricious curvature of its two focal relationships, in part shaped by the difficulties of loving someone romantically or familially but protectively holding something back.
Lynn Chen and Michelle Krusiec in Saving Face.
The performances are universally strong, though Joan Chen is especially great as someone long-squished by conservative cultural expectation and finding herself more and more frustrated with its effect on her life. Her sensitive work suggests someone who’s never had much sense of self because she’s been so hindered by expectation. Gao, who comes to feel like the film’s most fully realized character, is sympathetic, but Wu doesn’t coddle her either. With her homophobia and a recurring bit involving her making cracks about her Black next-door neighbor, you want to scold her when you’re not wanting to embrace her.
Chen’s stellar performance reinforces the mother-daughter narrative’s place as the best part of the movie. Lynn Chen and Krusiec have good chemistry — and it’s easy to root for them — but their romance isn’t given quite as much of a dramatic lift by Wu, who sometimes resorts to platitudes (like an emotional face-off at the airport) as conflict inevitably materializes in favor of developments that feel more specific to this couple.
The last act suffers from trying to do too many things at once. There’s an especially tacked-on-feeling post-credits sequence I found overbearingly reassuring. It’s like it wants to stamp out even the possibility of further conflict for the characters later on — like we couldn’t be satisfied with the subtler ending preceding it that, as it stands, is perfectly good. Neither thing, though, damages the movie that seriously. Because what Saving Face ultimately accomplishes — it’s a romantic comedy somehow still light and sweet while also grappling thoughtfully with coming out and negotiating overwhelming cultural pressure — is impressive. That Wu wouldn’t make another movie for nearly 20 years (a hiatus broken by 2020’s similarly charming The Half of It) is dismaying. Saving Face isn’t faultless, but the movies need more projects with its same thematic ambitiousness without getting bogged down by it.
Peterson Reviews 