Saving Face

This breezy Chinese-American coming-out comedy from freshman writer-director Wu has a big cast, but the film belongs to Joan Chen. As a fortysomething, traditionalist widow unexpectedly pregnant by a man she will not name to her busybody friends and neighbors, Chen is marvelous to watch: subdued and warily watchful, but with a free spirit chafing inside for release. Essentially ostracized from her suburban New York community, she heads into the city to bunk with her daughter Wil (Krusiec), a high-strung surgeon who’s in the process of alienating herself as well – by pursuing a romance with another woman (Lynn Chen). Nothing about the film’s concept is earth-shattering; despite its careful considerations of how ethnic, generational, and family identities collide with the anything-goes ethos of modern love in the city, it’s a pretty standard, but charming, romantic comedy, a less farcical female cousin to Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet.