Saturday Night
June 1 Sth, 2OO5
Nathalie Press (left) spends My Summer of Love with Emily Blunt.
trying on each other’s clothes and passing out.
quickly leads to uninhibited passion.
The pansexual Tamsin is manipulative and
But if Wil’s widowed mother can at age 48
beguiling, and Mona, who recently suffered a
incur the unequivocal wrath of her own par
humiliating breakup with a married man, is
ents—Wil’s grandparents, survivors of China’s
quietly desperate for the attention Tamsin lav
cultural revolution—when she announces that
ishes on her.
she has become pregnant and will not name
The acting and the camera work in My
the father, how could Wil be open about the
Summer of Love (which received awards from
even less conventional romantic and sexual
the 2004 Edinburgh International Film Festi
dimension of her own life? Wil is forced to
val, the London Film Critics Circle and the
answer that question when her mother, dis
British Academy of Film and Television Arts)
owned by her parents, moves in with her, and
are what give it an intensely alluring quality.
maternal intrusiveness compounds the compli
Ultimately,
though,the
love affair
between
these two
characters,
while believ
able, is a
shiny,
Hollywood,
straight man’s
fantasy of
what two
young
women in
love looks
like, namely:
perky, nubile
breasts being
nuzzled by
wine-stained,
Lynn Chen (left) and Michelle Krusiec star in Saving Face, summer 2005’s
bee-stung lips
must-see dyke date movie.
while their
owners roll around in various states of undress
cations of juggling her demanding career and
kx>king seductive and irresistible.
closeted love affair with the out and increas
The ending provides the audience with an
ingly impatient Vivian.
artificially tacked-on twist (a la Su'imming
Wu wryly, gently acknowledges the occa
Pool), which you will either love or hate.
sionally suffocating complexities and conflicts
Regardless, the whole of this film (opening
of ethnic and sexual identity, and she sets Wil
June 17 at Fox Tower Cinemas) is greater than ! and Vivian’s romance against a beautiful Man
the sum of its parts and is certainly worth
hattan backdrop, calling to mind When Harry
checking out with a lover on a languid summer
Met Sally... and the lighter side of Wixidy
day in between two glasses of wine.
Allen. As a downside, this can have the effect
—JB Rabin
of denying full gravity to the film’s serious
moments, but Wu’s instinct is more for easy
going, humanistic, humorous storytelling than
any rigorous sort of depth, and scenes such as
Wil’s quietly momentous coming out are writ
With Saving Face (opening June 24 at Fox
Tower Cinemas), first-time writer/director
ten and perfonned with enough insight that
Alice Wu has made a Chinese-American les
they can peacefully coexist with the film’s farci
bian sitcom, but it’s a good Chinese-American
cal climactic wedding scene without either
lesbian sitcom. I ler light but deft touch brings
piece feeling out of place.
Despite its nontraditional characters and sit
everything off without ever veering into the
preachy or maudlin, and the film offers enough
uations, Saving Face is for the most part a rather
even, neat and tidy film. It more or less dutiful
unforced charm, laughter and warmth to pre
ly follows the expected formulas, but it follows
vent the romantic comedy souffle from falling.
Wil (Michelle Krusiec), an ambitious young
them proficiently enough, and in enough of the
New York City neurosurgeon, meets Vivian
right spirit, to earn its place as an actually
(Lynn Chen), a ballet dancer and, coinciden
enjoyable (read: not dumbed down) crowd
tally, the daughter of Wil’s boss, at a Chinese-
pleaser and summer 2OO5’s must-see dyke date
American social gathering in Flushing,
movie (along with the more desperately roman
Queens, where they were both raised. Roman
tic girls-in-love thriller My Summer of Love).
—(Jhristoffher McQuam JF1
tic sparks fly, and they begin a flirtation that
Saving Face
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