Wonderful character development!

Pretty Good

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

The story of a Chinese-American family experiencing transition. The father retires, the three daughters make changes in their lives, and the entire family begins to discover their true selves and what truly matters - family and love.Some of the descriptions call this family bizarrely dysfunctional - but really there is nothing outlandish or extremely unusual going on. Just people finding their way.The dinner scenes made me wish I was there - so much yummy food prepared lovingly by a caring mother. People from large families that eat together in a traditional way might take it for granted. But those of us whose families never sat and ate together, long for that kind of togetherness (and home-cooked food).

Ed is the patriarch of an Asian-American family, and after retiring from his job, he mopes about the house, periodically making ineffective attempts at suicide, which are depicted in a comedic manner. In between these episodes he watches home movies of his three daughters' childhoods, while his offspring embark on their lives. The oldest girl is planning her wedding to an Ivy League blue-blood, while the middle one is a medical student who becomes attracted to a soap actress researching the role of a doctor. The youngest is a high school student who responds to a schoolmate's romantic overtures by leaving dead rats in his mailbox. After Ed heads off to a Buddhist monastery to confront his issues, the daughters deal with the shallow arcs of their respective narratives . A few quirky ingredients are added to spice up their story-lines, but none amount to anything more than a few moments diversion from the director's wooden attempts to evoke a Zen sensibility with pseudo-minimalist techniques. By the time Ed returns, two of the daughters have hooked up with their prospects, and the third has disposed of her unsuitable suitor. The vibrant Asian-American culture deserves better than this self-consciously coy contribution.

Then there's youngest daughter Katie (Kathy Shao-Lin Lee ), a high school anarchist engaged in an escalating war of pranks and romance with Simon, the boy next door (Sebastian Stan ). This has got to stop, warns big sister Sam after Katie bombs Simon's locker, to which she breezily replies "He loves me". Which really means they both love each other, but that is there own way of showing it. Then after they finally talk to each other they start to have a real romance relation ship.Then there's youngest daughter Katie (Kathy Shao-Lin Lee ), a high school anarchist engaged in an escalating war of pranks and romance with Simon, the boy next door (Sebastian Stan ). This has got to stop, warns big sister Sam after Katie bombs Simon's locker, to which she breezily replies "He loves me". Which really means they both love each other, but that is there own way of showing it. Then after they finally talk to each other they start to have a real romance relation ship.

I saw Georgia Lee's "Red Doors" at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival in New York, and was really moved by this film.I connected with the experience of being a part of a family that is in transition -- what seems to have once been a tight-knit family unit is now diverging into different directions. The parents are getting older...the children are entering into adulthood...and basically the dynamics have changed, and they are having to relearn how to be a family in their new lives.There's emotion, there's humor, there's rawness and sincerity, there's good writing, acting, and music, and a window into a Chinese-American family -- what's not to love?!And I can't wait to see what Georgia Lee does next.