Table of Contents | Next Chapter

The Joy Luck Club  

 

The Mothers:

Suyuan ....... Kieu Chinh

Lindo ........ Tsai Chin

Ying Ying .... France Nuyen

An Mei ....... Lisa Lu

The Daughters:

June ......... Ming-Na Wen

Waverly ...... Tamlyn Tomita

Lena ......... Lauren Tom

Rose ......... Rosalind Chao

        Hollywood Pictures presents a film directed by Wayne Wang. Produced by Wang, Amy Tan, Ronald Bass and Patrick Markey. Written by Tan and Bass. Based on the novel by Tan. Photographed by Amir Mokri. Edited by Maysie Hoy. Music by Rachel Portman. Running time: 135 minutes. Classified: R (for strong depiction of thematic material). 

            In this long film, Amy Tan's novel is skillfully realized. The acting, direction and photography are fine, and we get a good introduction to Chinese and Chinese-American culture, going back sixty years or so. The story concerns four Chinese women who ultimately emigrate to America, and their American daughters (the men are demons and cartoon figures). The film also scrutinizes the mothers of the mothers. It is mainly a series of vignettes, by which we understand something of each woman's background, her sacrifices, her shame, her relations with her daughter, her hopes for the future. 

            There are a lot of obligatory feminist, generation-gap, and communication-gap cliches, but behind all of that there is something more substantial as well. The story recognizes and illustrates the biblical principle that sins of fathers (and mothers) are visited upon later generations. Mothers who are ashamed from early abuse and humiliation seek to redeem themselves by maintaining hope for their daughters: hope which the daughters see as impossibly high expectations. Eventually, broken down lines of communication are repaired and the women come to love one another despite past bitterness. 

            But as the title (based on a continuing meeting of the four immigrant women for Mah Jong and group therapy) suggests, much of the joy that takes place is just luck, attributed to ancestors, omens, accidental revelations. Murder, suicide, profane language (often glaringly at odds with the super-polite diction usually employed by the ladies), and divorce are among the tools these women have used to maintain their self-respect. The film treats traditional Chinese religious practices as something of a joke: on a couple of occasions, the woman protagonists cynically use the superstitions of their oppressors to gain victories over them. Essentially, the women accomplish their goals through their own cleverness and through sheer luck. 

            But what hope is there for these women that the cycle won't continue, that their daughters, and daughters' daughters, won't go through the same heartbreak? Hope is evidently, in the filmmakers' minds, the main theme of the movie, as it is the major theme of some crucial speeches. But what basis for hope is there in a universe of chance? Although the movie conveys no sense of the reality of a personal God, it certainly presents the need for something more than luck as a basis for joy.