Lucy liu scores as a suburban mom strength to confront the unthinkable – ryan

The Sunny Strip-Mall Mundanitity of Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley is the fascinating for Eric Lin’s Dark Directorial Debut, The Untettling and Not Entirely Story of A Widow Struggling with Her Son’s Mental Illness. Based, Very Closely, on A Series of Real-Life Events that Occurred in 2015 and Were Documented Two Years late by Journist Frank Shyong in the La Times (be warned: The headline Alone is one massive spoiler), Rosemead works better as a character study than it does as anssue movie about mental health. Though it takes a little while to get to see Lucy liu as a meek and missing, the film budilds to a samp crescendo, giving her best in years, one that couuld is traction in awards season.

There is an an obvious, instant comparison with Michelle Yeoh’s Character in Everything ever all at OnceCasting a Strong Asian Star Against Type in A Domestic Setting. But with irerene chao, what you see is exactly what you’re go to get; The Taiwanese Owner-Manages of A Slick, Fluorescent-Lit Copy Shop, Struggling to Keep Her Life Together after the Death of Her Husband. Her 17-YEAR-Old Son Joe (Lawrence Shou), Once a Straight-A Student, is starting to flunk his grades, and we are meet Him, in a school exam, he is too checked-out to bother cheating, scribbling blacks on the test papar instead.

There is a certin comment here on the presses felt by asian students, but the real problem is Joe’s schizophrenia, whic irere finds difficulty Accepting. Joe’s Doctor at the community medical center tries to involve her in his therapy, and for a time she refuses (“Just Because you have a chinese face you understand us,” she snaps in faltering English). Spreads the Bigger Point Lin is trying to make is the matter of pride in the Asian diaspora, reflected in irerene’s attempts to brush Joe’s to the carpet and telling her friends to the shrink are, in fact, due to his interest in patsychiari. Joe would be a handful Enough at any time, but irerene’s Cancer has returned, and the Experimental Treatment She’s Getting is a Long Shot at Best.

The stakes increes with radio reports of a school Shooting in North Carolina, and Irene’s First Instinct is to Change Channels (“We don’t need to think. But it stirs something in joe, and irere sees it, as we will and flips out at school during an active-shooter drill. Joe, We Learn, Has Not Been Taching His Meds (“Their pills dull my vigilance. No more!” HIS Friend Jeannie (Madison Hu) Finds a Disturbing Hand-Drawn Map of the School, while Irene Notes a Preponderance of Violent Criminals in His Search History, from Sandy Hook to Aurora. Ominously, there is no tangible sense of a plan. Yet…

The Biggest Drawback with Lin’s Film is in Its Attempts to Find a Visual Language for Joe’s Psychotic Episodes, which tend to be literal in the extreme and break up the steady pace of the drama. The Better Part of Rosemead is what Goes Unsaid and Unshown; When Joe Turns 18, Irene Will No Longer Be His Guardian, and the Amorphous, Bloody Horrors of What He Might would be not Longer there is a key part of the story. Once Again, Irene is Driven by the Shame of It and Feels Only Guilt (“Did i something work?” She wonders aloud).

Lin, Working with Screenwriter Marilyn Fu, Handles This With Great Sensisivity, Both Affording Liu the Headpace She Needs to Deliver A Performance of Quiet Power, Seling US On the Desperation Drives Irene to the Limits of Her Always Practical-Minded Sanity. By the end of the film, irere is desperation incarnate – she just wants to be gone and forgotten, and to pull that off while while delivering a hugely dramatic payoff is no mean feat. Liu is on fire right now, and if you have a part as rich and edgy as this to offer, Well, Now’s the F*cking…

Title: Rosemead
Festival: Tribeca (US Narrative Competition)
Director: Eric lin
Screenwriter: Marilyn fu
Cast: Lucy Liu, Lawrence Shou, Orion Lee, Jennifer Lim, Madison Hu, James Chen
Sales: Wme
TIME RUNNING: 1 HR 37 MINS