Saving Face (2005, DVD)

In SAVING FACE, first time Writer/Director Alice Wu has created an engaging comedy-drama in what may be soon known as "The New York Ethnic Lesbian/Conflicted "If-She-Will-Marry" Sub-Genre." A Big Tent of the full troubled-wedding genre might include ANYTHING BUT LOVE, HAPPY ACCIDENTS, THE JOY LUCK CLUB, MAMBO ITALIANO, MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING, WHAT'S COOKING? WISEGIRLS and KISSING JESSICA STEIN, etc. No doubt too predictable in certain areas, SAVING FACE has plot twists and insights which make it entertaining and worthwhile. Its great strength is that it fields a competent cast and tells a fairly complex, multi-ethnic generational story, and does it believably. There are a few laughs and not too many awkward gaffes.

No mean achievement for a tyro director.

Wiry Wilhemina (Michele Krussiec), known as Wil to her family, is a second generation Chinese-American surgeon putting in long hours performing surgery every day at a New York clinic. Ambitious and level-headed, at age 28, she does not have much time or inclination for a social life. Somewhat estranged from her widowed mother (Joan Chen), Wil manages to see the rest of the Family, her grandpa and grandma (Jin Wang and Guang Lau Koh), at periodic social club meetings in Flushing, where she comes from. Wil has a secret, known to no one in the Family -- one that she also half-conceals from herself; that she is a lesbian.

One evening, after taking the boat over to Flushing, the grandparents nervously keeping an eye on her in the social mix, her mother strangely absent, but all Ma's gossipy beauty shop coworkers present with their husbands, Wil becomes aware of two facts: Something is wrong with Ma, and a new girl, Vivian (Lynn Chen), is not only a knockout but attracted to her.

It's mutual.

Presently, Wil learns that Ma also has a secret. At 48, she is about three months pregnant, the result of a social experiment, and has no visible father (that she will reveal) for the coming baby. Like a dutiful daughter, Wil defends her mother in front of Grandpa, and when he throws Ma out of the house, Wil takes the deeply depressed woman into her own apartment.

What she is going to do, however, about her personal secret and "first love" for Vivian will take a little longer.

Wil confides in her colleague, Randi (Jessica Hecht), at the clinic about Ma's problem, and to her solitary neighbor, Jay (Ato Essandoh), about her yen for the beauteous Vivian, a dancer with a New York City ballet company.

It is not long before Wil, tapping various and diverse resources, is sending out cattle calls to find Ma a husband; and endeavoring to find enough off-hour time for furtive companionship and a love affair with her charming girlfriend.

Wil can be chief surgeon, if she sticks with the clinic. Vivian, though inclined toward American modern dance, may have an opportunity to go for a five-year classical ballet "gig" (as she puts it), in Paris.

What are these two conflicted, upwardly mobile women to do? What is Ma to do, raising a baby, alone, in middle age? How will the Family react to the societal shocks and cultural strains descending upon them? And WHO IS the father of that increasingly apparent child?

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The plot of SAVING GRACE revolves around these questions.

Desires and traditions tangle, as Ma, despite her shame, helped by Daughter, steps out in the arms of a motley line of either befuddled or eager suitors; and Wil, soothed by Jay's sympathetic listening and quiet non-judgmental advice, tries to reach an accommodation with Vivian.

Who the father of Ma's child is, you will not discover until the end of SAVING FACE, and it turns out to be pretty surprising.

As the principals sometimes acknowledge in front of the TV set, SAVING FACE is a Chinese soap opera, but one that earns its chop sticks.

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Director Wu handles the diverse moods and cultures of SAVING GRACE well. She tenders Mainland (Cantonese) and Taiwanese (Mandarin) Chinese speaking characters (using subtitles) from the first generation Flushing milieux; their second generation American-born adult, bilingual children, close to home (i.e., Ma); and third generation integrated Chinese-Americans (Wil, Vivian, etc.), in the larger world of the City. She integrates them all with mainstream characters like Randi, and with Jay, who is Black and if if his applying beauty masks to his face is any clue, also gay. Wu shows by using fair realism, and occasionally outrageous humor, how a traditional Chinese family copes with the generational changes which America rings on immigrants as they acculturate.

Joan Chen, the best known artist (THE LAST EMPEROR, 1987) in the cast, creates a performance of nuanced guilt and redemption as Ma, a late-blooming widow who has let her impulses carry her too far. Michelle Krussiec's Wilhemina is properly wound tight for much of the picture, and it is nice to see her relax near the end. The supporting ethnic Chinese players do their thing, and given the paucity of subtitles, some of their lines may appear more meaningful and entertaining to Chinese speaking viewers in the audience than to others, but all are human and recognizable. The strappingly handsome Ato Essendoh provides considerable balance and interest -- another surface, as it were -- in his portrayal of Jay.

But the real find of SAVING FACE is newcomer Lynn Chenn, who makes Vivian a bright, laid-back, seductive beauty. With her perfect carriage, lovely oval face and features -- set off by an exquisite cast to her eyes, and an often quick, ironic smile on her lips -- Miss Chen takes over the screen, easily stealing every scene in which she appears. Her poise, intelligence and comedic timing register strongly.

If the definition of a Star is that of an individual we can't take our eyes off on screen, then Lynn Chen is a Star of the immediate future. And if her Vivian is a lesbian, as she convincingly demonstrates in her bedroom scenes with Wil, many a woman will be envious, or in sympathy with Wil; and a fair number of straight men in the audience will half-way consider a sex change operation.

Keep an eye on Lynn Chen!

And so, Alice Wu has turned out an interesting, entertaining first feature.

Good luck to her, too. The cliche need of saving face is nothing she need worry about here.

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This is my premature entry (tardily reported) in the great Stephen Murray's annual international celebration of gay freedom (LGBT pride). This year, Steve is observing the completion of his fifth year at Epinions, on June 21st. Between now and then, if you would like to read more entries and/or join his Write Off Celebration, contact him through clicking on this link to his Profile Page:

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Reviews of several other Little Films on the subject of Romance:

ANYTHING BUT LOVE --
http://www.epinions.com/content_119116500612

HAPPY ACCIDENTS --

http://www.epinions.com/content_41039531652

WISEGIRLS --

http://www.epinions.com/content_103194201732

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http://www.epinions.com/user-macresarf1/show_~View_Profile#long_bio