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Saving Face

EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Classics

Saving Face reviews
65
8.5 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 28 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 16 votes
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Comedy  |  Drama  |  Romance

Written by: Alice Wu

Directed by: Alice Wu

Release Date:
Theatrical: May 27, 2005
DVD: October 18, 2005

Running Time: 91 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: R for some sexuality and language

Starring Michelle Krusiec, Joan Chen, Lynn Chen, Jin Wang, Guang Lan Koh, Jessica Hecht, Ato Essandoh, and David Shih

A romantic comedy about a daughter struggling to understand her mother's heart, which ultimately allows her to understand her own. A story of unspoken loves, contemporary and cultural taboos, and the journey of two women towards living their lives honestly. (Sony Pictures Classics)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

90

Film Threat Eric Campos

Thought provoking and brimming with charm, match that with an infectious sense of humor and outstanding performances.

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88

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

An insightful, clear-headed look at relations within a Chinese-American family.

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80

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

A sweet, true and, at times, universal love story it is.

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80

The Hollywood Reporter Duane Byrge

A juicy Chinese-American romance about preserving "face" at the sacrifice of your whole being. This Sony Pictures Classics release is a comic gem.

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75

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Nicely acted.

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75

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

A worthy addition to what must take up a whole section of the video store - the heartwarming comedy that reaffirms the power of personal choice, while also promising to love and to cherish even the most hidebound cultures.

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75

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Tender and often extremely funny.

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75

San Francisco Chronicle Walter Addiego

An affable comedy (with some serious notes).

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75

Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder

Younger viewers might be annoyed with Saving Face for not being more in-your-face progressive and edgy. Older audiences will be happy that it's not.

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75

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

Despite the mysteries of the plot, a sitcom-style sense of expectation creeps into Saving Face, which sometimes feels comfortable but mostly serves to spotlight the shortcomings in a script that invents compelling characters but doesn't give them much out of the ordinary to do.

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75

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Just plain fun. Don't miss it.

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75

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A first film with a deft comedic touch and a trio of charming stars, Saving Face isn't deep - but it doesn't profess to be.

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70

Slate David Edelstein

What makes Alice Wu's debut so pleasurable is its easy rhythms, its sly juxtapositions, and its relaxed but funny performances.

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70

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

It has the heart and spirit of a true romantic comedy, and a lightness of touch that you rarely see in a debut picture.

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70

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Alice Wu's debut film is so deft, natural and exquisitely specific, it feels fresh.

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70

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

It abjectly collapses into feel-good nonsense.

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70

Variety David Rooney

The film's appealing characters and amusing situations prevail over its general shortage of energy.

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67

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The writer-director, Alice Wu, fudges a lot of the basics -- I never believed the heroine was really a physician -- but the final, proudly public girl-on-girl smooch still jerks a tear.

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67

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

A convincing and compelling community of characters with a sure comic sense and an at times screwball sensibility.

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67

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

Surprisingly fresh and charming overall.

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63

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

There's almost a perverse pleasure in watching occasionally weak performers mar an essentially sound screenplay. That's the saving grace of Saving Face -- Wu gets the hard part right.

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63

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Actually the problem with Saving Face as a romantic comedy is that its central romance is a drag.

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60

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The film is simultaneously sweet natured and sharply observed, and if love eventually conquers all, it takes its own sweet time doing it.

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60

LA Weekly Chuck Wilson

In her charming debut feature, writer-director Alice Wu works hard to sidestep both pathos and antic comedy, an admirable ambition that makes for a relentlessly low-key film that nonetheless builds to a third act rich in surprising turns of character.

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60

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Everything that happens in the last half-hour betrays the canny, hardheaded perspective of what came before.

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50

Village Voice Ed Park

Despite a fairly explicit lesbian boobfest (projected attendance just went up!), the film is more good-natured than provocative.

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50

Dallas Observer Melissa Levine

Part of the reason that it doesn't quite succeed is that these messages are so tried and true.

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40

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

The umpteenth variation on second-generation American immigrants bucking the traditions of their first-generation elders.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 16 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Marc K. gave it an8:
I was hesitant to see this in the movies, as it was marketed as a Chinese-American Lesbian Comedy. However, "Saving Face" is so much more than that. It was just a very unique perspective on relationships, not just between lovers, but with family. It reminded me a little of an Amy Tan book, and I mean that as a compliment. Also, parts of this film reminded me of "Kissing Jessica Stein," but I haven't seen anyone point that out yet. And yes, as a poster noted below, Lynn Chen is very hot.

Maria D. gave it a10:
Everyone's movie, Must see and must own.

William M. gave it a10:
This is the best Chines made movie ever. Very up close , very personal. Very deep, very funny, very intellectual.

kris l gave it a10:
One of the best movies i've seen in a long time. although it's a fictional film, i too can relate to Wil and her relationship with her mother. it is all too common for a dutiful daughter to carry so much weight of secrets on her shoulder. a must see film. MIchelle Krusiec plays a very convincing Wil and Joan Chen stepped out of her usual character to play a convincing Ma. and what can i say about Lynn Chen except that she's gorgeous and hot. it had a great overall cast and it's just a really fun film to watch.

Techai D. gave it a4:
Saving Face was just the Asian soap opera drama put into a movie format. So they tried to make it more tantilizing via the lesbian thing, it is nothing new, just the same cultural lessons recycled. Very bland and unsatisfying as entertainment.

Chad S. gave it a6:
If your actresses are willing to bare their bodies, as Michelle Krusiec(Wil) and Lynn Chen(Vivian) do in "Saving Face", the filmmaker has a responsibility to put them in a film that matches the honesty of their lovemaking. The patriarchal figure that controls Ma's life is so unrelenting in his old country ways, his change of heart that comes late in the film is hard to swallow. Ma(Joan Chen) is pregnant, and her father's reaction to the news suggests that his daughter was sixteen, and not forty-eight. If the old man is going to be perturbed by those circumstances, how are we expected to believe that he'd accept the truth about his daughter's suitor, and granddaughter's orientation? The love scene belongs in a movie that seriously examines how the children of foreigners are hurt by the hegemony of old country values over western modernity, instead of a sometimes cute comedy that is by no means difficult to watch.

Mark B. gave it a6:
What a difference "sleeping on" a film occasionally makes! While I was sitting in the theater watching Alice Wu's cross-cultural mother-daughter romantic comedy, I was more or less thoroughly enjoying the two-and-three-quarters-dimensional, mostly sympathetic lead characters, the inside observations on a culture and set of family traditions that I have very little personal knowledge of, and many of Wu's comic situations and set-ups (my favorite: the mom searching out a Chinese film--ANY Chinese film--at a video store; her choices are predictably and hilariously limited, but I'm surprised there weren't a couple of Bruce Lee kung-fu epics in there. Maybe they were rented out!) The film's title is a Chinese cultural reference to NOT embarrassing oneself or one's family socially; both mother (Joan Chen) and daughter Wilhelmina (Michelle Krusiec) risk doing just that and more because Wil, a lesbian, finds True Love for the first time...and Ma's pregnant! And a couple days later, it occurred to me: during the matchmaking dinners, a series of disastrous dates Ma embarks on in an effort to quickly find a husband and father for her newborn-to-be, and in a climactic incident I won't spoil, Saving Face comes off like a gender-reversed Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigolo. Men who are in Wu's view too old, too socially awkward or don't look like Asian GQ cover models are endless targets of cheap comic derision; ultimately, the film appears to be saying that only the young and/or beautiful deserve to love or be loved, regardless of how much kindness, decency, gentleness or other compensating virtues a less-than-stellar-looking man might possess plenty of. I mean, if I really want to watch material that communicates this, I'll wait and buy the first season of Average Joe on DVD. (And don't tell me how much the gorgeous Joan Chen "plained herself down" to play the mother; if I end up looking one-fifth that good by the time I hit my 50s, I'll be eternally grateful!) The one characteristic that romantic comedies and horror films share is that it's much, much easier to make a bad example of either than a good one; I still had a good time with Saving Face, and it's still infinitely preferable to Must Love Dogs or The Wedding Date, but the belated sour taste it left in my mouth relegates it to the category occupied by such recent efforts as Hitch and A Lot Like Love: romcoms that, as M*A*S*H's original Trapper John (Elliott Gould), described a martini without an olive: "(don't) quite...make it."

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