Wilhelmina (Michelle Krusiec) has compartmentalized her life.  Flushing, Queens, is the old world, the conservative world of Chinese immigrants in which she grew up, the world she visits on weekend, suffering through dance nights at the neighborhood social club where Ma (Joan Chen) is always trying to set her up with neighborhood guys.  Wil’s professional life is in Manhattan.  She is a doctor, and her job takes up most of her time, and she has little left over for her personal life, lived quietly in Brooklyn.  She is happy with her life’s clear lines of demarkation, and if she has her way, never the ‘tween shall meet.  And so, of course, they do.

>>Read our interview with director Alice Wu.

Wil does meet someone at the social club, though probably not the someone Ma would be happy about.  Vivian (Lynn Chen) is a young dancer, the daughter of the Wil’s boss at the hospital.  Vivian and Wil are instantly smitten with one another, and they are soon meeting up for dates all over the city.  Vivian has taken time off from her dancing career to teach children, and she helps loosen up the high-strung Wil.  Wil enjoys the relationship and her time with Vivian, but they keep it secret, and nothing of their fondness for each other ever touches Queens; despite Wil’s close relationship with her mother, she has never come out.  Happy as she would be to keep the two worlds separate, she is forced to confront everything when she comes home one night to find Ma waiting on her doorstep.

Ma is perhaps the most interesting character in the film, and she is played exceptionally well by Joan Chen.  Ma is caught in the middle, not fully part of the old school world of her father, but not as fully westernized as her daughter.  She is the film’s middle child: Americanized enough to feel like she should be able to live her life the way she wants to, yet still close enough to the immigrant experience that she feels beholden to her father.  (How interesting it is, in all the relationships between the characters, to see that Grandpa, played by Jin Wang, has one set of expectations for his daughter, and a completely different set of expectations for his granddaughter.)  We see the world from Ma’s perspective, which is an interesting look at the stereotypical way in which Asians are viewed.  In one stand-out scene, Ma, left alone for the evening, goes out to rent a movie.  Inquiring about Chinese titles, she finds her choices limited to The Joy Luck Club, The Last Emperor, and Asian porn: repressed housewives, medieval lords, sex kittens.  Ma has never really been free to make her own decision, and her challenge is to stand up to her father and live her own life.

Joan Chen makes the character so compelling that one almost wishes the whole film could be about her character.  How we feel for her when she goes on a string of hopeless dates - in an attempt to find someone who will be a father to her child - with a laughable string of men, the kind of guys who would be any woman’s last choice.  Ma is not looking for the love of her life; she is looking for whoever will do, someone for who she can settle.  Ma is already in love with someone: the father of her unborn child, the identity of whom remains a secret until the climactic scene, a scene which offers a satisfying payoff, well handled by first time director Wu.

There is much hypocrisy in the Flushing social world, and it is easy to see why Wil would want to keep her relationship with Vivian a secret.  Ma is a popular woman until it is found out that she is pregnant and cast out of Flushing by her father.  The women at the hair salon all have their opinions and gossip endlessly.  Ma is no fool though; she knows they talk.  In the end, we find out that she knew about Wil’s sexuality long before Wil said anything.  Moms always know.  Of course, when Ma stands up to her father, names the father of child and makes it known that she wants to be with him regardless of what anyone thinks, all the women want to be like her and she is welcomed back into Flushing society with open arms.  There is an interesting layer here.  Grandma (Guang Lan Koh) is a feisty old revolutionary who never quite mellowed with age.  She still talks about what she did in China with a flair that makes it seem like she would be ready to take to the streets again in a heartbeat.  Ma and Wil are revolutionaries in their own small way.

Wil and Vivian are at the core of the film, though, and their relationship has charm and sweetness to spare.  There have not been many movies about young Asian lesbians trying to make their relationships work.  In fact, none come to mind right now.  In that way, Saving Face is refreshing.  There are layers to the film, all of which are presented with humor and a universality that elevates them beyond the microcosm in which they are presented.  The film puts a new twist on an otherwise banal story.  Despite this, Saving Face is a love story we have seen before, and in the end we can see so clearly where things are going that it becomes tedious.  For all its fresh perspective, this is a film that has been done more than once, and often much better.

Film Rating: êêê1/2  (out of 5)