★★★ (3 out of 4)
Obliterating her objectified image as the sexy action star of “Charlie’s Angels” and “Kill Bill,” Lucy Liu deglams with a vengeance to give the performance of her life in “Rosemead,” a shocking true story of a mother-son relationship that goes tragically off the rails. “Rosemead,” named after an east Los Angeles neighborhood with a populous community of Chinese immigrants, is a movie that examines a culture of secrecy and repression.
Liu plays Irene Chau, a Chinese single mother facing a world of obstacles. Her husband has just died, leaving his widow to run the family printing business on her own. Meanwhile, her son Joe (an outstanding Lawrence Shou), 17, is battling schizophrenia, and she’s been diagnosed with terminal cancer. The proud Irene, of course, would rather die than complain out loud or even in private. Holding things in is her superpower. Or so she thinks.
The trappings of stardom have nothing to with the way Liu, 57, approaches the role of Irene, which is full-on immersion. Liu speaks the native Mandarin she learned as a child and then in thickly accented English. We’ve never seen or heard her quite like this.
Lucy Liu deglams with a vengeance to give the performance of her life in a shocking true story of a mother-son relationship that goes tragically off the rails.
Director Eric Lin and screenwriter Marilyn Fu are acutely aware of how many mental health issues in the Asian community go untreated, a fact that underlines the recent legal decision when a Michigan jury found the parents of a 15-year-old school shooter responsible for the deaths their son had caused. How responsible does Irene feel for her son’s disturbingly brutal drawings and his computer searches for shootings at Sandy Hook and Aurora?
Joe’s school friend, Jeannie (Madison Hu), freaks out when she finds Joe’s hand-drawn map of their school, while Irene notes a dark fascination with violent crime scenes, from Sandy Hook to Aurora, in his search history. And what about Joe acting out in anger when he feels helpless or cornered?
Even when Joe does see a therapist (James Chen), Irene turns a blind eye, as if recognizing the problem would make it real. “Just because you have a Chinese face doesn’t mean you understand us,” Irene snaps at doc. She also withholds her own problems from Joe, not wanting him to bear her burden. Even with her best friend, Kai-Li (Jennifer Lim), Irene will only go so far before withdrawing into the false comfort of silence. She even lies about Joe’s shrink sessions, saying he's just interested in psychiatry as a path for himself.
Lin can be heavy-handed in catching us up in the tangled web of Irene’s self-deception. But his intentions are honorable in calling attention to issues that need addressing. A rare outing at the beach for mother and son is interrupted as Irene coughs up blood, a literal sign of her illness that Lin wants Joe and the audience to see, though Irene pushes harder to keep ignoring the obvious.
Liu is extraordinary at putting a human face on suffering. Irene isn’t indifferent to Joe’s journey into darkness, but she is frightened of it, until her plan to sidestep a potential tragedy becomes worse than any potential cure. “Rosemead” means to shake you and it does. Pay attention.