Film Review: Saving Face
Excellent. One of the best pre-Crazy Rich Asians Asian-American films, sitting above The Joy Luck Club, and among Double Happiness as well as Better Luck Tomorrow. Writer-director Alice Wu’s 2004 movie is about a Chinese-American family coming to terms with the complexity of modern love, and multigenerational conflict. Though presented as a drama-comedy, Saving Face nonetheless shares a nuanced perspective about what it means to be Asian-American in the twenty-first century in America, intersecting with the experiences of having a non-heteronormative sexuality.
The movie stars Joan Chen and Michelle Krusiec, both of whom have had moderate success on the big screen in both Asia and America. They play Hwei-Lan and Wilhelmina respectively, a mother and daughter. Two events at the beginning of the movie drive the plot: Hwei-Lan falls pregnant out of wedlock, and Wil falls in love with Vivian, an dancer and the daughter of a senior doctor at the hospital where she works. The drama of the movie is then driven by Wil attempting to find a suitable partner for her mother to marry to satisfy her traditional grandfather, and Wil dating Vivian while balancing her job as a surgeon, her mother who is living with her, and her desire to not offend anyone in traditional Chinese community.
The movie has many numerous subtle delights that make it an absolute pleasure. Wil’s broken Chinese is very believable, as well as the choice to have her speak in English to her mother, and have Hwei-Lan respond in Chinese. The lack of overt anti-Asian racism was refreshing as well: no lunchbox moments, no blatant name-calling, no returning to Asia to discover oneself. This could partly be attributed to the movie taking place largely within the Asian enclaves of New York, where it’s entirely believable that there would be a neighbourhood entirely filled with Asians. But even that is a very accurate and well-needed depiction of the community: warm, but at times suffocating and obnoxiously gossipy.
The choice to show Hwei-Lan exhibiting anti-black racism was a brave and honest decision: though my experiences with Chinese immigrants don’t exhibit overt racism to the same degree as what was portrayed by Hwei-Lan, it unfortunately remains part of old prejudices. Furthermore, the movie was made twenty years ago, and I hope that part of it is changing attitudes towards black people: Saving Face shows the development that Hwei-Lan made towards the end of the movie, and shows her being accepting of Wil’s black friends.
An excellent foil for this movie is the 1993 film, The Joy Luck Club, which also attempts to capture a part of the Asian American experience, particularly through the lens of a mother-daughter relationship. Though I’ve previously reviewed The Joy Luck Club and absolutely panned it, I now see it as a result of its era of moviemaking, and an older Asian-American experience. Saving Face on the other hand, feels like an extremely modern story, both in framing as well as plot. The Joy Luck Club was epic in scale and proportion, with a runtime of 139 minutes when movies lasted less than two hours on average. It tells a multi-generational story beginning in China and egregious tales of abuse and trauma that are wholly unacceptable to our modern sensibilities. Not only would this probably generate more widespread appeal, but also probably aligned more with the Asian American experience of forty years ago than it does of the one today.
On the contrary, Saving Face is more personal story, a simple plot on a small scale, well-told in the vein of contemporary arthouse films. The story is based on Alice Wu’s own coming-out experience and her relationship with her mother. Unfortunately, its simple surface subject matter, as well as what could be perceived as unrelatable plot, resulted in a less widespread distribution than The Joy Luck Club; in fact, The Joy Luck Club’s Wikipedia page only lists Crazy Rich Asians in its legacy. A common saying among my friends who speculate on the stock exchange is that “being right at the wrong time is the same as being wrong”. Of course, stock market gambling is different from film production, but I can’t help but think that Saving Face isn’t more widely acclaimed simply due to timing: I imagine the lesbian aspect of it didn’t sit well with mainstream audiences during its debut either: something something intersectionality.
One interesting thing that happened in the movie was that Wil brings up filial piety in relation to Chinese homophobia. Filial piety is somewhat complex Confucian idea in East Asian cultures that respect and love for ones elders, particularly parents, are virtuous. Her belief is that filial piety is very strongly interwoven within Chinese culture, and since homosexuality doesn’t allow for the continuation of the family line, then it is not pious, and wholly incompatible with Chinese culture. I think it’s an interesting theory which is at the root cause of not only East Asia homophobia, but also in other cultures: what will the world come to, how will my family name live on, this is unnatural, etc. However, it’s just an interesting theory to me; I don’t think it provides a particularly satisfying answer to why Asians are more predisposed to homophobia, if at all.
One final note I do wish to end on is a bit of self-reflection. A problem I have with many Asian-American stories is that they seem to end with vague messages about assimilation, which I take issue with: “Reject your roots!” “Your parents are too strict!” “Date the white person!”. Of course, the text is about the protagonist coming to terms with their Asian American identity, but the subtext involves some degree of assimilation. I wasn’t left with that feeling after watching Saving Face: it seemed as though Wil managed to maintain a great degree of balance, and the closing scene includes her very pregnant mother, her girlfriend, her very traditional grandfather, and her black neighbour. But I wonder if it’s because I agree with the values presented as adopted by the more traditional Chinese in this movie: anti-racism, anti-homophobia, and the non-traditional family. Perhaps someone else watching this movie would still find that it involves assimilation, and not the others that I took issue with.
Finally, I had a great time with this movie, from the busy, Chinese-packed opening in Flushing to the The Graduate-esque ending on the bus. I’m immensely proud of Alice Wu for not only conceiving of the story, but also being brave enough to share it with the world. There were rumours that the producers originally wanted to recast the movie to star white actresses from traditional families, but she fought against it. I hope she and the cast had a lot of fun with it, and I encourage everyone to go watch it.
