THE JOY LUCK CLUB
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1993 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: THE JOY LUCK CLUB is the stories of four families that have migrated from mainland China in the last generation. It is the story of four mother-daughter relationships in the United States and the story of the four mothers' lives in repressive and sexist Chinese society. The stories are often heart-wrenching and often inspirational. If this is a woman's film, it at least is miles ahead of something like BEACHES. Rating: low +3 (-4 to +4).
It is a party. Friends have gotten together in a celebration. Several families are represented. The families are Chinese-American, though through inter-marriage not all the people present are Chinese. At the center of the party, four women play Mah Jong. They are the Joy Luck Club, originally four women from different parts of China who found each other in the new country of the U. S. and have played together and talked for years. One of the original members died months ago and her daughter has replaced her. Each of the four families has a daughter who was born in this country; each has or had a mother who was born and raised in China. THE JOY LUCK CLUB is really an anthology film with four pairs of stories, each pair with the story of the mother's life in China and the story of the mother-daughter relationship in the new country. There is a beautiful symmetry in the eight stories. In each pair a single theme will run through the mother's story and the mother-daughter story. Each mother's story will show the hardship placed on women in a country bound by the ancient traditions that still live in China. They are traditions that are particularly hard on women, giving them little choice as to their fate. In the mother-daughter stories, each daughter faces, and of course overcomes, problems caused by freedom from the pre-set roles of the old country. So each pair of stories is also about the changes that go on in a family adapting to a very new way of life. It is a matrix of eight poignant stories woven into a single story. Bracketing the entire film is the story of June (played by Ming-Na Wen) who discovers early in the film that her mother did something bad in China, an act so terrible June does not understand it and one that calls on June to return to China on a mission that she is worrying about. Hanging over most of the film is the question of how June's mother Suyuan (Kieu Chinh) could have done what she did. Yet by the time the full story is revealed we have seen how different mainland Chinese culture is from our own and we will come to understand Suyuan's actions.
THE JOY LUCK CLUB is what used to be called "a woman's film." And a "crying film" at that. I will say in its defense that I liked it considerably more than my wife did. I think that the family conflicts I saw in the film are similar to conflicts I have seen in real families, but that Evelyn might have seen less of. Usually we do not see how really different life is in China even today. I will defend the "crying film" aspect much in the same way I defended the same aspect of THE COLOR PURPLE. We are looking at very real stories of human misery and the cruelty in parts of this film. If a film that shows you that does not manipulate you and perhaps bring a tear to your eye, the film is broken. Or maybe you are broken. In any case we are talking about a culture that has extreme sexism by Western standards; it has forced marriages; it has terrible poverty. At least the stories are all fairly new and unfamiliar here, which already gives it a point above the recent THE WEDDING BANQUET. One of the eight stories was in some ways reminiscent of RAISE THE RED LANTERN, but even there it had unexpected touches.
Visually the film brought back memories of China, and particularly the karst-dotted landscape near the Li River Valley and Guilin. The camera work by Amir Mokri is very beautiful when it needs to be and downbeat when that is what is called for. The film was directed by Wayne Wang from a screenplay by Any Tan (based on her novel) and Ronald Bass. The three shared production credits with Patrick Markey. THE JOY LUCK CLUB is one of several very good films that are coming out this autumn. I would rate it a low +3 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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