generational flux

The film version of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club (1993) is a sprawling chick flick. Divided into a series of vignettes and flashbacks, the film tackles the relationships and experiences of Chinese mothers and their American daughters. Meandering between generations could sometimes get tricky. Mother-daughter dynamics are already hard and complicated enough between the same cultures, but having the kids confront the grievances of another belief system create pressure and friction at the same time. In the film, we see June (Ming Na) and Waverly (Tamlyn Tomita) struggle for their mother’s approval and affection both as children and as adults. While Lena (Lauren Tom) and Rose’s (Rosalind Chao) passivity fuels the breakdown of their marital unions. Their mothers experiences in China somehow contributed to the irresolute formation of their daughters upbringings. Lindo (Waverly’s mother) was forced to have an arranged marriage when she was fifteen to a child-boy. An Mei draws the lessons in her life from her own mother's experiences as a lowly concubine. The perils of Suyuan and Ying-ying as young brides in China breaks the sheer will and spirit. Suyuan left her twin baby girls under a barren tree during the outbreak of war while Ying-ying accidentally killed her baby boy in her depressive state due to her husband’s extra-marital affairs.

As a film about women, the men in the stories are either portrayed as cads, controllers, womanizers and weaklings. Not much are shown about the mothers’ husbands in the States. Fair enough, the spotlight is on the women overcoming adversities. But as they inhabited in their married lives; raising children and forging careers, the men should be the significant other half. All in all, with the women wearing cheongsams with tiny waists in the China scenes which makes me drool with envy, the movie may not be altogether stirring but it’s remarkably good looking cast and their shining performances make up for all the stereotypes of migration and over-indulgence of melodrama.