Red Doors
Metascore
60 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 15 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 15
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 15
  3. Negative: 0 out of 15
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  1. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: G. Allen Johnson
    75
    A gentle, pleasant film about people you genuinely like.
  2. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    75
    Writer-director Georgia Lee never leaves any doubt that the bonds of ethnic family devotion are a charm against any woe more serious than an engagement to the wrong white guy.
  3. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Sheri Linden
    70
    Well-told and charming, debuting writer-helmer Georgia Lee's comedy-drama Red Doors is big on heart but never sappy. Without overdoing the quirk factor or the melodrama, Lee shows a sure feel for family dynamics, and her light touch brings out the best in the ensemble's lovely, understated performances.
  4. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    70
    A peppy if uneven charmer with a fetchingly wistful edge.
  5. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: John Anderson
    70
    Following Woody Allen, Ang Lee and any number of sitcoms, Georgia Lee constructs her well-shot, well-written film around three daughters.
  6. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    63
    There's enough affection and insight here to make Lee's next movie worth watching for.
  7. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    63
    Packs five films' worth of drama, crises and revelations into one, and often lapses into sitcom triteness.
  8. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    63
    Think of Red Doors as a promise, and hope that Georgia Lee keeps it.
  9. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Pete Vonder Haar
    60
    A film about a family billed as "bizarrely dysfunctional" – is a pleasant enough experience. However, it probably could have used a little more of the bizarre or dysfunctional to spice things up.
  10. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Melissa Levine
    60
    Everything you'd expect from a frosh-indie effort: stilted dialogue, oversimplified relationships, sitcommy goofiness, and cringe-inducing romances. And yet Red Doors is so well-meaning, with such obvious affection for its characters, that it pleases nonetheless.
  11. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    60
    This agreeable, lightweight movie, written and directed by Georgia Lee, turns the malaises of a suburban family into bittersweet farce that teeters between cheeky humor and surface pathos.
  12. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Joshua Katzman
    60
    Predictable but sincere.
  13. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    50
    The script falls victim to the stereotypes and clichés so often found in movies about Asian-American families. Still, Lee shows talent, although it might take a feature or two before she finds her own voice.
  14. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Scott Warren
    50
    Ma, who portrayed the stone-faced General in the Coen brothers' comedy "The Lady Killers," once again plays his role largely silent. As the despondent Ed, Ma says more with a few facial expressions & twitches than most performers could hope to with a three-page monologue.
  15. Variety
    Reviewed by: Ronnie Scheib
    50
    A lightly feminist, good-naturedly comic sketch of a Chinese-American family in crisis. But despite pic's earnestness and obvious good intentions, narrative elements, carefully set forth though they may be, fall back on overfamiliar, underdeveloped tropes.

User Reviews

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User Score
7.4 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 8 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 2
  3. Negative: 1 out of 2
  1. ChadS.
    8
    Although not entirely successful, the attempts at black humor does do the trick of staving off comparisons to Wayne Wang's "The Joy Luck Club". This family seems too self-absorbed with their own lives, and as a result, they seem too blase about their father's repeated attempts at suicide. Especially Katie(Kathy Shao-Lin Lee), who's in an embattled game of one-upmanship with her neighbor that involves practical jokes which escalates in danger as a sort of edgy courtship. Despite these flaws, however, "Red Doors" is at times, uncanny in its ability to make us feel good, thanks largely in part to Julie(Elaine Kao), whose relationship with Mia(Mia Riverton), recalls a dyke version of "Notting Hill" with the same good cheer and warmth. In a slight deviation from the story conventions we come to expect in some film about a second generation-Chinese family, when Samantha(Jacqueline Kim) leaves her man, it's for another man of the same race. She's firmly planted in the first world, unlike her father(Tzi Ma), whose plan of attack against his own mental sickness faintly recalls Todd Haynes' "Safe". "Red Doors" is aided immesuarbly by an ending that doesn't wrap everything up in a nice bow; a red bow. As recognized in the Chinese culture, red is a signification of luck, and to a man like Ed, not having a son(a heir to pass down the family name), makes him unlucky and unwilling to use the door where his anxious family awaits him.… Full Review »
  2. MichaelF.
    1
    There's nothing in this film I haven't seen a dozen times in other movies.
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