New Releases : SAVING FACE

Settling into the screening room Thursday night, surveying the regulation buzzcuts and chestnut Sarah McLachlan cowlicks around me, I apprehended that I might not be the target audience for this low-budget, Will Smith-produced film. But I was prepared for anything.

As a romantic dramedy, Saving Face sort of, kind of works, despite the fact that it’s basically a roundelay of recurring cliches and ancient movie conventions that have been recycled countless times. (A team of anthropologists in Kenya recently discovered a last-minute-airport-boarding-gate-confrontation scene carved on a cave wall)

The biggest compliment I can pay the film is that it takes itself seriously, and doesn't shortchange the characters in order to amp up the laugh factor or hammer home any played points about Struggling With Identity. It has a few memorable moments, and doesn't resort to stereotypes or shy away from reality.

The story, from first-time writer/director Alice Wu, revolves around a young Chinese-American medical resident in New York City and her narcissistic, still-living-in-the-Late-Ming-Dynasty mother, played by Joan Chen. (At least 70 percent of the movie is in subtitled Mandarin) An implausible twist early in the film - the unexpected pregnancy of the 48-year old mother - forces the two into shared living space, and marches them toward a confrontation over the daughter’s sexuality.

The daughter character, Wilhelmina (she goes by "Wil") is given the full ingenue treatment by director Wu; there are even a few spots of physical comedy given to her in case we didn’t know that she was the hero. (By the way, why did the militantly Chinese mother give her daughter a conspicuously German name? Nevermind.)

It’s up to Wil, played by Michelle Krusiec, to hold the film's emotional center. Krusiec does a serviceable job, and she is believable as a harried daughter. I thought I recognized her from a wordless cameo in Oliver Stone’s Nixon. Turns out I was right - so she certainly has a memorable face.

But the real find in the film is soap-opera actress Lynn Chen, who plays the sexually aggressive love interest. Chen has a shapely, muscular egg-face and is able to be expressive in scenes where she’s lying down or far away from the camera. Something about her holds your attention whenever she is on screen. Maybe it's a matter of taste. There are Audrey Hepburn people and Shirley MacLaine people. I prefer Shirley.

About Chen, I can’t say enough good things. I even like the way she smokes her cigarettes. I would be interested in seeing her take on a more effusive role, or a role where she can express more physicality. Independence Day 2, perhaps? (This time, instead of giving the aliens a virus, we can give them poison ivy).

I don't know if I would say there is chemistry between Chen and Krusiec, but their scenes together are mostly to the point and unforced, except for an initial encounter in a hospital break-room that feels more like harassment than flirtation. And the movie’s key sex scene is well-done – it’s aggressive and full of tension, without being angry. In a lesser movie, there would be something gimmicky or otherwise unrealistic about a scene like this, but they pull it off nicely.

There's another scene in the film, however, that is both unrealistic and jarring. The mother wanders into a video store and asks to be directed to the Asian section, whereupon she discovers a trove of Asian porno shelved alongside titles like The Joy Luck Club. Hardy har. What is the director implying? I used to work in a video store, and I made a lot of creative shelving decisions in my day, but I never hatched a scheme to stick it to 40 percent of the world's population.

Also, I can’t be 100 percent, but I think there was a moment where we see Joan Chen’s character staring at a copy of The Last Emperor, starring Joan Chen. That would be very Twin Peaks. But maybe I just imagined it.

The action of the film is tethered around a series of mixer events known as Planet China, at which members of the Chinese immigrant community come together to gossip and pass judgment on each other. If Wu’s interpretation of Chinese culture is to be trusted, the entire People’s Republic should be writing for Page Six.

I thought one or two of the matchmaking/gossip scenes went a long way, but Wu gives us a handful of them. After the first, it’s mostly diminishing returns, but I’m sure it’s a headache to film anything in a crowded ballroom, so huzzah to her for trying something difficult. But if you find yourself annoyed by the first of these scenes, you’re in for a long night.

I didn’t see the ending coming, because frankly, I didn’t expect something so hackneyed. There are actually about three endings, each carefully following the next, possibly to be re-shuffled at the whim of an empurpled testmob.

Let me just say this: when a character has to announce out loud how long they’ve been away in order to impart necessary information to the audience....well, we can do better than that can’t we? Is some studio worried that a less telegraphed finish will ruin this film’s chance of becoming My Big Fat Gaysian Wedding?

You don’t go into a film like this expecting something daring or original. It’s an experience much like watching an action movie; you’re looking for craftsmanship, a new way to bottle old ideas, avoidance of tedium, and for the movie not to treat you like a jerk. Overall, I guess it’s a success. I didn’t feel like my time had been wasted.