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Saving Face
Saving Face
7.4
/10
395 Ratings

SAVING FACE

Directed by Alice Wu
United States, 2004
Comedy, Drama, Romance

Synopsis

When widow Hwei-Lan informs her father she’s pregnant, he banishes her from Flushing. With nowhere else to go, Hwei-Lan moves in with her grown daughter, Wil, a Manhattan doctor who doesn’t want a roommate. So Wil does what any dutiful child would do: set her mother up with every bachelor in town.

Synopsis

When widow Hwei-Lan informs her father she’s pregnant, he banishes her from Flushing. With nowhere else to go, Hwei-Lan moves in with her grown daughter, Wil, a Manhattan doctor who doesn’t want a roommate. So Wil does what any dutiful child would do: set her mother up with every bachelor in town.

Our take

Heartfelt, irreverent, and sexy, Alice Wu’s mid-2000s debut brings a Chinese-American lesbian perspective to the romcom genre. As a melodramatic mother caught in matchmaking misfires with her earnest daughter, Joan Chen (Twin Peaks) is devastating and hilarious in this shamefully underseen film.