Double Happiness

An under-appreciated film (as many Canadian films are), Double Happiness expresses brilliantly the tightrope one often has to walk between pleasing others and pleasing oneself. Jade Li, portrayed masterfully by neophyte Sandra Oh, must choose between her desires for love and stardom and her desire to please her demanding, suffocating, ultra-traditional Chinese father. Her life complicates when she meets a sweet English major named Mark, played by Callum Keith Rennie, a hidden treasure of an actor; the scenes between Jade and Mark dynamically reflect the most uncertain nature in love, an uncertainty which often makes love all the more worth fighting for. Yet, there is a subtlety in the way writer/director Mina Shum presents Jade's nervous breakdown of a life, a subtlety which craftily creates the effect of slowly drawing the viewer into the spiralling life of Jade. With its powerful, yet simplistic (in the Hal Hartley vein) direction and tremendous performances, Double Happiness stands as a remarkable film which deserves more attention. Pity!

Mina Shum's Double Happiness bravely explores a group that mainstream film (read: Hollywood) continues to ignore: Asians in North America. That the film features strong acting, good writing and confident direction makes its accomplishments all the more greater.

You don't need to be Asian to enjoy this film, anymore than you have to be Italian to watch The Godfathers. Young women of whatever ethnic backgrounds are bound to identify with the lead character, finely played by Sandra Oh. The daughter-father conflict crosses all national boundaries, and is explored in this film through the eyes of Chinese-Canadians.

I'm a Canadian of Chinese descent, and found the characterizations of the family to be accurate overall. At times, the domineering Father is one-dimensional (tyrannical and cold) and needed to be fleshed out more. The role of the siblings--especially towards their parents--was underplayed and could have offered a contrast to the main relationship between the elder daughter and Dad.

Still, the strict traditionalism of the parents was on the nose, and the struggles of the daughter, Jade, ring true. In fact, I venture to say that Jade was played *too* obediently, and should have broken from her family sooner.

Following this line of thought, the film could have been expanded to explore Jade moving into her own home and finding her own career as an actress, then reconciling (perhaps) with her stern Father at the end.

As it stands, the movie ends abruptly and too soon. Shum and Oh do a fine job of getting Jade on the audience's side, only pull the carpet on her just as she leaves home. The movie begs for closure in the relationship between daughter and father.

Perhaps in the sequel.

Double Happiness is a very realistic look at Asian family values and personal values. Sandra Oh as the cheeky Jade Li was excellent. The actor that played her first date Andrew was great too. I was amused at the outcome of this pairing.I was very impressed by Callum Rennie, who played Jade's caucasian boyfriend Mark. There's a quite funny scene between these two that involves a talk about bad clam chowder and "fascist" bouncers. The chemistry/tension between Jade and Mark was great. The rest of the family was great too. Truly a must see movie about relationships.

This movie was an interesting look into the life of a Chinese family in North America. I think the characters were written and portrayed in a believable, sensitive manner. The subtle, reserved, underplaying of the parents I think is sometimes mistaken as one-dimensionality, but really reflects a traditional and reserved nature that they were trying to maintain. Their expectations for their now westernized children, and the dilemmas that arise, are also evidence of that. It is not a case of right versus wrong, but novel versus traditional. As for the conflict of introducing Jade Li's main love interest as a Caucasian, I also don't believe that was intended to pit white people as good versus Asian people as bad. I think that the juxtaposition of the two lifestyles presents Jade's two major conflicts: her desire to lead a more Western life, with freedom to make many non-traditional choices, and her feelings of love, respect, and loyalty toward her traditional parents, whom she would not want to bring shame or betrayal. A life with one of the Asian suitors would symbolize her choice to remain under the guidelines of restraint her heritage suggests and their families demand.

One aspect I feel especially overlooked about this film dealt with Jade's big audition with the woman from Hong Kong. While Jade was brought up in a Chinese home in North America, she could understand and speak some Cantonese, but had many Western interests. But because she could not read Cantonese, this duality did not bring the success one might hope having the benefits of two cultures would bring. As the child of an Asian father and American mother (but raised almost entirely American, I'll admit), I found that scene very interesting.

I think this film was wonderful, and that one need not have a particular interest in Asian families to appreciate the family and social relationships, conflicts, and hopes portrayed in Double Happiness.

This was a cute, sweet small movie about a Chinese-Canadian woman caught between her dreams and her father's expectations. Complaints about the film center on what some see as the director's one-sided depiction of the anti-assimilation viewpoint. Jade's father is so concerned that his children live within the constricts of traditional Chinese culture that he cuts off contact with them entirely if they stray. But Mina Shum (the director) never claims that his rigidity is the rule; the story is about how Jade deals with the specific situation, and it makes no claim that her situation is pervasive. Other Asian characters have different levels of acceptance of Western openness: Jade's mother, while not openly defying her husband, maintains contact with her son whom his father has cut off completely. So "Double Happiness" isn't an anti-Asian traditionalism screed, as some have claimed, neither is it an Everywoman story of freedom as some seem to want it to be. It's simply Jade's story about choosing between her dreams and the man she's falling in love with against her father's uncompromising worldview.

Mechanically, the movie is good if not a masterpiece. The performances are excellent. Sandra Oh is charged with almost singlehandedly winning over the viewer, and she's completely up to the challenge. All performances are (as far as I can tell anyway) wonderfully authentic. This was Callum Keith Rennie's first major role, and he's as awkward, sweet, and appealing as ever. The interstitial scenes of characters speaking to the camera are an interesting experiment--a good tool for revealing character, they nevertheless are sometimes jarring. Overall, the film is like a compact colorful flower: it won't dominate the landscape but it richly awards the lucky soul whose attention it captures.