I was optimistic about this movie, seeing as it was at Sundance and many people on IMDb especially seem to like it. It started off alright, until Wil met Vivian and started going out with her. Then, suddenly, they were in love and making love and very attached to each other-even though there was ABSOLUTELY NO CHARACTER OR RELATIONSHIP DEVELOPMENT WHATSOEVER. I didn't care about any of the characters except for the mother, who was the only one who stood out as having a personality at all.
It's really too bad, because this movie could've been excellent. It had funny parts, witty parts and parts that would have been moving had I any empathy for the people involved.
However, it also had many, many parts which were completely random (e.g. The grandmother dying-how did it serve the plot? It was sort of sad, but she was only in the movie for about 3 minutes, so how could we feel attached?) and didn't seem to have any lasting effect on the characters anyways.
The formula for this movie seemed to be: Random event, random event, semi-relevant plot point, random event that sets up to the very important key plot point which we don't care about, and then an extremely predictable, happy ending. The only original part of this movie was when the director twisted the overused "running off to the airport to win so-and-so's heart back in the nick of time", and it wasn't even done in a terribly heartbreaking way.
In conclusion, "Saving Face" had lots of potential, but overall this film had the feeling of a high school video production, as though the director was too lazy to give the characters any personality to make us care about them. If you watch it, watch it for Joan Chen's performance as Wil's mother. She is the only actress worth seeing in this directionless, pointless, clichéd film.
It's really too bad, because this movie could've been excellent. It had funny parts, witty parts and parts that would have been moving had I any empathy for the people involved.
However, it also had many, many parts which were completely random (e.g. The grandmother dying-how did it serve the plot? It was sort of sad, but she was only in the movie for about 3 minutes, so how could we feel attached?) and didn't seem to have any lasting effect on the characters anyways.
The formula for this movie seemed to be: Random event, random event, semi-relevant plot point, random event that sets up to the very important key plot point which we don't care about, and then an extremely predictable, happy ending. The only original part of this movie was when the director twisted the overused "running off to the airport to win so-and-so's heart back in the nick of time", and it wasn't even done in a terribly heartbreaking way.
In conclusion, "Saving Face" had lots of potential, but overall this film had the feeling of a high school video production, as though the director was too lazy to give the characters any personality to make us care about them. If you watch it, watch it for Joan Chen's performance as Wil's mother. She is the only actress worth seeing in this directionless, pointless, clichéd film.