Alice Wu reflects on love and Saving Face with new Criterion release

Alice Wu’s heartfelt 2004 debut Saving Face was added to the Criterion Collection this August, with a new director-approved blu-ray filled with special features. The rom-com follows a young Chinese American surgeon (Michelle Krusiec) navigating falling for her new dancer girlfriend (Lynn Chen), the unexpected pregnancy of her unmarried mother (Joan Chen), and the cultural stigmas around each.

Wu originally wrote the script while working at Microsoft and taking a screenwriting class at the University of Washington. Her instructor offered to option the script, but with the likelihood that the queer, Asian-American story would be turned into a straight, white one by Hollywood producers. Wu decided to bet on herself, and it worked out – she eventually directed Saving Face herself, winning over audiences with the movie’s charm, humor, and specificity.

That wasn’t the end of Hollywood pressure – studios still wanted her to make the characters white and closely follow the mold of the very successful My Big Fat Greek Wedding. But Wu held firm, and Saving Face thrived because of it. It’s a rich text about a specific group of people in a specific place and time that still manages to be a fun and funny genre romp, and it’s lived on for decades with audiences because of it.

I spoke with Wu last week about the process behind the newly released Criterion edition, revisiting the movie decades after making it, reflecting on standing firm against studio pressure, and what she’s learned about love. As always, I also asked for a rec of recent media the director has liked.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Congratulations on Saving Face being added to the Criterion Collection! What was your reaction when you found out?

I couldn’t believe it. I completely couldn’t believe it. I freaked out. 

I did something I never do. I’m not a big social media person, but I immediately posted on social media, I think on some weird level so that they couldn’t take it back. Anyone who knows me knows how hilarious that is, because I’m quite private, and I mostly only post when I have to promote a screening and I want to help out the theater. I think I literally must have done it because I was like OK, now they will be so embarrassed that they can’t say ‘Oh, not that Saving Face!” It’s like, Who wants to kick the Asian lesbian? That’s what I was thinking.

What was the process of overseeing this version of it and recording the special features?

They assign a producer to you, and mine was Alex Proulx, who is just lovely. It was very calm. I couldn’t believe how much say I got in things like the artwork. They’re the ones responsible for it, but they were very open about really wanting my input in what directions to go.

They kept taking stills from the film [to use as potential artwork], and I kept saying You know what, I think illustration would be great. You do not need to use my own stills for my own movie. I would love a whole new piece of artwork for this edition that makes this special. And they did. We found this wonderful Chinese American painter in Brooklyn [Ping Zhu], and she painted the cover. That was great.

The movie does a wonderful job of reflecting queerness as a constant process of becoming. 20+ years after making it, were there things you saw in a new light this time as you continue to become more of yourself?

It’s funny, I’m still very close friends with my casting director, Heidi Griffiths, who I just had dinner with last night. We were talking about how I have perhaps a fuller understanding of love. I wrote the script when I was like 28 years old. And I don’t think I’ve changed that much as a person. I’d say by the time I hit 30, I’m probably highly recognizable. I don’t think anyone who meets me is like Oh, you’re so different, but I do think I have a much deeper awareness of how, as much as I love romantic love, I probably put more emphasis in my life on the other bonds as well. They’re at least equal, if not more so.

I think that was true about me then, but I didn’t realize it. When I watched the movie, it was very clear to me that the actual love story is between the mother and the daughter. The romance is important, don’t get me wrong, but really the relationship she had to work on was the one with her mom.

I think I’ve matured enough, hopefully, that now I see it’s my relationships with my friends, my relationships with my family that probably have shaped me even more. Not that my romantic relationships haven’t, but the piece where we’re extremely close friends, it’s almost that piece that is more.

Now I’m quickly thinking Oh no, which of my ex-girlfriends is going to read this. But I don’t mean you guys are not important! You’re very important. I’m merely saying that I think, when you work in film and especially in romantic comedy, so often the pursuit is about how you are going to find love. And now I understand that question is more than just romantic love, it’s also how are you going to deepen love and find love in all the other ways that then make your life much more [worth] living, and in a lot of ways make your romantic love a lot better as well.

I was talking with a friend yesterday about rom-coms, and she was saying a problem she has with modern ones is the plot is just about the romance, and there aren’t these other elements to play with. I think that’s reflected so brilliantly in the different elements of Saving Face. I’m curious how you think about the current state of the genre, and if there’s anything that’s hit particularly well for you in recent years?

Oh my god, what a good question. It’s weird that I’m a filmmaker, given that I’m so incredibly unlearned and most of my friends are not in the industry. So I totally confess that I don’t study film the way probably a lot of my peers do. I wasn’t allowed to watch TV growing up, but we did watch old fashioned romantic comedies. 

This is not a romantic comedy at all, but I will say, in the last few months, the movie that I freaking loved the most is Sorry, Baby. I love that movie so much. It’s not a romantic comedy, but I guess I’m thinking about it because I’m like Well, what’s the last flat out romantic comedy that I watched? A few come to mind. I don’t want to mention them, because I didn’t like them, which is so awful but it’s true.

It’s funny, I have to do a podcast, and they’re asking me about characters I relate to. I think about all the movies that mattered to me, and it’s like Broadcast News, Tootsie, Tank Girl, Frances Ha. I guess what I’m linking all of these movies to, I think all of them have a romantic arc at some point. I suppose it occurs to me that all of them, and also Sorry, Baby, seem to be about people starting to transform and realize who they’re becoming. Tootsie, very literally, but Frances Ha or Broadcast News, how those characters are in an inflection point and change. 

Obviously in all movies, people change. But it occurs to me that the romance then is just another reflection of who you’re becoming. And maybe that’s what appeals to me. I’m a romantic. It’s not like I don’t love those swoony stories, but I agree with your friend that if that’s all that’s focused on, I think it would take an extremely skillful person who has a very deeply personal connection that they’re able to tease out in a nuanced way for that to be exciting. Otherwise, I think it would feel a little cookie cutter to me, and I think a lot of the mechanics sometimes have felt like Okay, here’s the beat, here’s the beat, here’s the beat. I miss the textures of all the other things that show the person becoming who they need to be.

Looking back at when you were writing Saving Face and how you went about it, I’m sure this Criterion announcement makes you feel even more vindicated about your decision not to option the script. As you think back on all the lines you held firm on, are there any you’re most happy with?

It’s so funny. I knew it was ridiculous I was holding firm on these lines. I don’t think I fully understood how ridiculous it was until the film came out and I had more experience with the industry. Maybe it’s because I never set out to be a filmmaker. I wrote Saving Face for my mom. 15 years later, I wrote The Half of It for my dad. I didn’t think either film was going to get made at that point when I was writing them. They were just ways for me to work something out of my head.

It takes forever to get something made, but when suddenly people start to be like Wait, we like this, I think some part of me is so astonished that this thing I barfed out is connecting with people, and I don’t want to mess it up. I’m a very emotionally-motivated filmmaker, in the sense that all of the aesthetic choices are emotion-based, like whether I choose to move the camera or not move the camera. Everything is related to that, so it’s either I feel it or I don’t feel it. I often say Do I hear the music or not? When I hear the music, I’m less able to be like Well, I’ll just change that, unless I still hear the music and it’s better. I either feel it or I don’t, and the moment I don’t feel it, I’m like I’m so sorry, not that. 

And if I’m going to direct it, I generally think it’s better for your director to really, really feel the piece, right? So maybe that’s a failing on my part, is that I’m unable to analyze it in that way, but Joan [Chen] once said this, and a lot of people I’ve worked with have said this, I’m a very intuitive filmmaker, for better and for worse.

Alice Wu recommends: Sorry, Baby and Chappell Roan

This is gonna sound so ridiculous, but I finally broke down because my younger friends have been on me about this. This is so embarrassing, after a couple of years of just being like Oh, I don’t want to listen to new music. I love my yacht rock. Leave me alone. ‘90s country is so great. I finally broke down and really listened to Chappell Roan, and she is great. It’s sort of like this funny moment where I was so cranky about it, like Aaaaaaah, and then I was like okay, you know what? Solid. Honestly, she’s very talented.

It’s hard to beat “Good Luck, Babe” in terms of how well structured that song is, but I do love “My Kink Is Karma.” I can’t help it. There’s something about that song, but I also suspect it might sound the most Taylor Swift-y of her songs. I’m not even going to pretend I don’t love Taylor Swift. I do. I’m basic. I’m a very basic person. I’m a populist, what can I say?

The new Criterion edition of Saving Face can be purchased at the Criterion store. The movie can also be rented on VOD platforms. Sorry, Baby is available to rent on VOD platforms. Chappell Roan's music can be found pretty much anywhere music is played.