Red Doors

"Red Doors" starts out looking like a re-tread of early Ang Lee movies, but quickly adds a charmingly unique cross-generational element as three sisters and their father are at crossroads in their lives from retirement to career and romantic choices to literally explosive teen rebellion.

Each of the Chinese-American daughters has a relationship with a Caucasian, but inter-ethnic issues are less of a concern than human issues of self-realization, as the characters end up drawing strength from their cultural context as they deal with the pressures of being "the model minority."

While the writing is stronger than the directing as there's some drag, particularly during the middle daughter's seemingly endless and petty travails, writer/director Georgia Lee makes the best use of actual home movies - her family's -- since "Capturing the Friedmans," for bringing memories to life. We are actually seeing her sister's, lively co-star Kathy Shao-Lin Lee's, childhood as the family members take turns digitizing home movies.

As is usual in first timer's ethnic coming-of-age movies there's a bit of a stereotyped emphasis on art vs. commerce career choices and high school memories that are doubtless a filmmaker's autobiographical resonances. But each character is very much an individual, including having their own musical themes, from hip hop to mopey singer-songwriter tunes. The teen ager is an original spark plug of comic relief even as the family members' relationships aren't all resolved sit com style.

I particularly liked how the acculturated oldest sister pushes the depressed dad (a marvelous Tzi Ma) to see a shrink but he wisely finds a more traditional healing process that's the opposite of talk therapy and a touching contrast to the similar emotional crisis in "About Schmidt."

The title was explained in an off-hand remark at the end, a reference to the tradition of painting one's front doors red to bring good luck, and not all the audience caught the meaning, though we all appreciated the red doors pins that were distributed after the screening at the Tribeca Film Festival. It was also nice of the director to give up some of her allotment of tickets to people on the long line hoping to get in, which included many Chinese-American women from around the New York metropolitan area who had heard about the film through word of mouth.

The potential audience may be confused by the time this film is generally released with "Saving Face" that is being distributed earlier, as they share a few plot points, including parental conflict and a lesbian daughter, but on its own it is a lovely, sweet film.

The story of a Chinese-American family experiencing transition. The father retires, the three daughters make changes in their lives, and the entire family begins to discover their true selves and what truly matters - family and love.

Some of the descriptions call this family bizarrely dysfunctional - but really there is nothing outlandish or extremely unusual going on. Just people finding their way.

The dinner scenes made me wish I was there - so much yummy food prepared lovingly by a caring mother. People from large families that eat together in a traditional way might take it for granted. But those of us whose families never sat and ate together, long for that kind of togetherness (and home-cooked food).

It was so nice to see a movie that was not the standard crap that so often comes out of Hollywood. This film was very funny and very moving.

Coming from a family with 3 daughters and a father who often was left in a daze by the constant chaos around him, I really felt a connection with this movie.

The cast was awesome and really delivered great performances. The story was credible, entertaining, and filled with humor at just the right times. This is without a doubt a film I would go to see again in a heart beat.

I would definitely recommend it!

I really appreciated the slow, deliberate, and organic way this movie unfolds. The film is nearly plot less in the best way possible; it is a movie about people simply existing within their world, and writer/director Georgia Lee wisely eschews the temptation to up the ante or artificially increase the dramatic conflict beyond what is absolutely necessary. There are no villains here, just people trying to exist and navigate their way through their relationships with one another.

Everyone in this film -- from the three sisters (Jacqueline Kim, Elaine Kao, and Kathy Shao-Lin Lee) to the depressed father (Tzi Ma) to even the high school prankster (Sebastian Stan) and the overbearing mother (Freda Foh Shen) -- are fully fleshed out characters who transcend their respective "types" (aloof father, overbearing mother, responsible older sister, etc.) Only Sam Wong's distracted fiancé (Jayce Bartok) comes close to caricature, but his quiet interactions with Sam are always believable and never forced. The script is delicately and subtly written, and Lee manages to find a gentle humor in even the more potentially dark situations.

It's nice to see such a quiet and subtly realized movie today, when even smaller character dramas have a tendency to resort to melodrama or artificially "quirky" characters to make their impact. This film definitely feels like Ang Lee at his "Ice Storm" and "Brokeback Mountain" best, but it has a lightness of touch that Lee himself hasn't had since "The Wedding Banquet" over a decade ago.

This is both a film and a filmmaker that deserve to be discovered.

after first seeing the interview with the director and cast etc., i was hopeful that this would be a good film. NOT..... It is just so lame. Characters are not well developed, plot developments are soooo predictable. not one of the three sisters or their parents- become real people for the viewer. I think the screenwriter just tried to cram too many story lines in and could not decide where to focus. The father's story had promise.His scenes provide some entertaining and fun quirkiness; but he was left half formed, as was everyone else. I really cannot imagine WHAT the director et al. thought they were bringing new to the world . Maybe this was their run-through and their next films will be worth watching.For a much more interesting, entertaining film about Chinese American women/family, see the very worthwhile Saving Face.