"When Irene picks up her teenage Joe from school, they engage in a warm, almost cheerful exchange. The conversation, which comes early in the new film Rosemead, carefully avoids potential minefields: Joe's increasingly erratic behavior and Irene's cancer battle. That silence on sensitive issues is a familiar one for Lucy Liu. Playing Irene, Liu paints a wrenchingly compassionate portrait of an immigrant mother struggling to navigate multiple challenges in the wake of her husband's death."
""In a lot of immigrant families, we don't necessarily unpack our feelings in real time," said Liu, who was raised by Chinese American parents and who learned to speak English when she was five. "There's a sense of protection by being quiet and that silence can feel loving, but it's also very heavy." It's far more introspective compared to some of her other roles: Liu has charted a trailblazing path for Asian American representation in Hollywood from Charlie's Angels to the swashbuckling Kill Bill saga."
Rosemead centers on Irene, an immigrant mother played by Lucy Liu, who contends with a recent husband's death, a cancer diagnosis, and her teenage son Joe's schizophrenia. The film portrays quiet familial communication where protective silence suppresses difficult emotions. Liu learned Mandarin to shape Irene's accent and mannerisms. Director Eric Lin and co-writer Marilyn Fu based the story on a real-life case in California's San Gabriel Valley. The limited theatrical release begins in New York on Dec. 5. Liu also produced the film and hopes it will prompt conversations to reduce mental health stigma.
Read at www.npr.org
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