Lucy Liu and Lawrence Shou star in director Eric Lin’s compassionate, tender drama.
Immediately identifying itself as “inspired by a true story,” the film proceeds to lay out its impending tragedy: deceased father, cancer-ridden mother, schizophrenic son.
After establishing its bona fides, Rosemead chooses not to burrow too deep into the inner lives of its characters, perhaps out of respect for the real-life people involved. Instead, in its first 15 minutes, it explains the circumstances that set the stage for the tragedy to follow and then relates what unfolded.
It’s a straightforward drama that is very well-made and features a very good lead performance by Lucy Liu as Irene, a Chinese woman in Southern California who runs a successful printing business in the Chinese-American community. Having immigrated from Taiwan, evidently as an adult, she is limited in her comprehension of the English language, and speaks English in a halting manner, but owns her own home and cares for her only son, Joe (Lawrence Shou), a teenager who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Irene lost her husband some months before the story begins, but her son feels his father’s loss more keenly, which is understandable. Stoic to a fault, Irene is not given to outward shows of emotion, and her upbringing hems her in tightly, with cultural values that insist that families, and especially parents, should take care of their own households, without asking for help of any kind.
Thus, Irene feels she must bear a load by herself that, frankly, is too much for any one person to bear alone, not only providing for herself and her son financially, but also practically, since she must also care for all household responsibilities, as well as her own developing health problems. She’s been diagnosed with cancer, and her doctor tells her plainly that she should ‘get her affairs in order,’ since the disease will probably take her life within months.
Some community members look askance at Irene, gossiping without knowing her true condition, which only hardens her resolve, and pushes her further into isolation. All the while, young Joe is fracturing further and further, under her burden of deteriorating mental health.
For all that Rosemead is well-made, yet, even more so, it’s profoundly sad. Irene is a good-hearted, hard-working woman who is successful from a financial standpoint, but becomes overwhelmed by a tidal wave of emotional and medical issues. After the loss of her husband, she has lost her footing in society and doesn’t know how to regain her place. Nor has she developed any true friends who can help her deal with all the issues she is facing.
As compassionate as Marilyn Fu’s script and Eric Lin’s direction prove to be, they keep a polite distance from what happens, reporting rather than investigating. It’s like watching a slow-motion automobile accident, and being helpless to stop it.
Rosemead reminds that appearances can be deceiving. No matter how successful someone may appear to be, they may be drowning emotionally, and unable to call for help. It’s up to everyone else to watch out for them, and to be ready to lend a hand to help them survive another day.
The film opens Friday, January 9, at AMC NorthPark in Dallas, via Vertical Entertainment. Visit the director’s official site for more information.
Dallas Film Now. 