Trailer for FINDING MR. RIGHT (2013)
Cast: Tang Wei, Wu Xiubo, Liu Yiwei, Song Meiman, Elaine Jin
Director: Xue Xiaolu
Reviewer: Alexis Fisher
Synopsis:
When a film begins with a woman dramatically and quite comically adjusting a baby-bump proof, Velcro stomach wrap in an airport bathroom, one may feel as though entertainment is well underway. Although Finding Mr. Right does not disappoint when it comes to comedy, there are also somber undertones too. Our leading lady, Wen Jiajia (Tang Wei), has all the right ingredients needed to make a spectacle of herself. Jiajia’s style is gaudy, her disposition foul and her demands reflect the insatiable desires of the arrogantly wealthy. Funded by a neglectful and very much married “sugar daddy,” Jiajia travels from China to Seattle, Washington to give birth to an American citizen. (At least, that is the agenda of her housemates, and of many other Asian women making the expensive trip to the US.) Her driver and guide, Frank (Wu Xiubo), can be found on the opposite end of the personality spectrum. He is soft-spoken, humble and lives (for some time) without access to an overflow of money. His top priorities are caring and sacrificing for his daughter, Julie (Song Meiman). Over the course of the film, however, Jiajia’s encounters with the other women at the “maternity center” and, of course, with Frank challenge and change her for the better.
In the midst of immigration politics and the instability involved in dating someone else’s husband, Director Xue Xiaolu creates an entertaining and simultaneously poignant space for a complex heroine like Jiajia to find not only Mr. Right, but also herself.
Review:
When I think about a semi-tribute to Nora Ephron’s Sleepless in Seattle, I (again) do not picture the leading lady wrestling with a baby-bump concealing wrap in the airport. I also do not imagine our new “Meg Ryan” to be engaged in the act of falling in love with our equally new “Tom Hanks” so soon after giving birth to another man’s love child. Throw in a controversial backdrop of pregnant Asian women traveling to the States to obtain American citizenship for their children and we can have an entirely different movie!
Indeed, what is interesting about the portrayal of “maternal tourism” in this film is that our heroine is not being strategic in giving birth abroad. [Medina, NY Times] Jiajia actually has a meltdown in a club when thinking about the legal obstacles she faces in giving birth to an illegitimate son in China. In addition, a police raid of one center that occurs at the beginning of the film provides the audience with a more nuanced and, perhaps more balanced, vantage point from which to view this phenomenon.
Although there are similarities between Xue Xiaolu’s Finding Mr. Right and its namesake, I find that the evocation of Sleepless in Seattle functions as a well of fantasy. It reminds me of discussions about William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew being a “play within a play.” [Prof. Larry Danson] We should not view Finding Mr. Right as providing an international commentary on Sleepless in Seattle¸ but rather we should see this film as providing a window into the inner life of a pregnant Chinese woman who has to grapple with her own fantasies before she can find herself.
By fantasies, I am referring to her expectations of settling down with a cheating “sugar daddy” and using (someone else’s) money to buy her way through life and into happiness. Jiajia embarks upon a journey that has less to do with how far Beijing is from Seattle, and more to do with how far her reality is from her heart.
Finding Mr. Right plays on Nov. 6 at the 4th NYCFF and opens theatrically in the New York City on Nov. 8, both at AMC Empire 25.
*Many thanks to the two websites included below for providing assistance with the character names and plot information:
Wikipedia: Sleepless In Seattle ; Wikipedia: Finding Mr. Right
*Many thanks to the two articles included below for providing background knowledge of “maternity tourism”:
Huffington Post ; New York Times
*Many thanks to the two articles included below that I viewed before drafting my thoughts:
Twitch.com ; BeijingCream.com
*Many thanks to Professor Larry Danson for his lectures about Shakespeare, and many thanks to my fellow students in a small discussion group that explored and examined The Taming of the Shrew.
Alexis Fisher was born and raised in New Jersey. She attended Saint Timothy’s School for girls in Stevenson, Maryland and then continued her education at Princeton University. During her undergraduate career, Alexis Fisher majored in English, and minored in Women & Gender Studies and African American Studies. In regards to the Arts, Alexis is an aspiring writer and actress; she has acted in a few plays and has written a short story or two.