LOS ANGELES, Dec. 2 (UPI) — Lucy Liu produced and stars in Rosemead, in theaters Friday. The actress says it was important to bring the story, which follows a Chinese single mother and her son, to the big screen.
Based on a 2017 Los Angeles Times article by Frank Shyong, the film stars Liu as Irene, a widow whose husband died of cancer. With a terminal cancer diagnosis herself, Irene searches desperately for a way to treat her son, Joe (Lawrence Shou), who has schizophrenia.
In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, Liu said the emotional and practical demands of Rosemead were worthwhile. In fact, she hopes to find more stories like Rosemead to champion.
“These are the stories that we want to tell and these are the stories that need to be told,” Liu said. “We want people to show up so that we don’t lose a sense of our history and a sense of our future that we can have.”
Irene discovers Joe has been researching the perpetrators of school shootings. Worried that Joe might be planning a shooting of his own, Irene takes drastic action — the same as real-life subject Lai Hang did in the events chronicled by Shyong.
“This story is so difficult to digest because it’s something that could’ve been prevented,” Liu said. “There’s a lot of stigma behind mental health and behind the idea that it’s not something that you can share or should share with other people.”
The film shows neighbors and family members questioning the medication Joe takes, and Joe feeling pressured to neglect his prescription. Liu hopes the film can lead to conversations about mental health.
“She was so alone and I think that is what’s so devastating about it,” Liu said. “I don’t think that she had the advocacy from, not just the hospital or from the doctors, but also from her community to help her. I think this is a process that needs to be in conversation.”
Director Eric Lin, making his feature directorial debut after a cinematography career, said he related to Irene’s fears over the next potential school shooting.
“I have a daughter who’s 9 years old and she does shooting drills at her school,” Lin said. “It always breaks my heart that she has to do that. I can’t imagine what it would mean for a parent to have that fear.”
The frequency of school shootings compounded Irene and Joe’s family crisis. The death of Irene’s husband is still fresh and she keeps her own diagnosis to herself.
“I don’t think that she even knew how to help her son and she was grieving her husband,” Liu said. “Her son was grieving the loss of his father. I think there was just a sense of urgency there that they were running out of time.”
Mental health counselors attempt to support Irene and Joe, and Irene turns to the Rosemead police to find out what can be done about her suspicions. In both cases, however, the systems give Irene information but no help processing it.
For example, police explain a 5150 hold, which would allow Irene to have Joe committed for 72 hours for a psychiatric evaluation. Irene speaks English as a second language and does not fully comprehend the alternatives she is offered.
“She doesn’t have the advocacy to help her really understand,” Lin said. “She’s nodding along in the police precinct when they’re talking about the 5150 hold. She’s putting on a very Asian face and agreeing and smiling along as they’re handing her this document. Internally, she’s not understanding.”
Liu, who speaks speaks Mandarin in the film, said it was important to portray the authenticity of Irene’s language and cultural isolation.
“It really needed to be as authentic as possible in order for the story to be told and received frankly,” Liu said. “The focus for me was really this to start the movie and to really understand the interiority of the character.”
For Lin, directing Liu and Shou was “a totally different skillset,” and he credits both with devotion and commitment to their roles and the film. He could apply some of his cinematographer skills to directing, though.
“There were some things that I could apply from a cinematographer’s point of view like knowing how to save time and how to manage a schedule,” Lin said.
The script, by Lin and Marilyn Fu, is based on Shyong’s article. Shyong also provided his notes from the interviews he conducted for the article.
“At the time the article came out, a lot of the boy’s classmates were underage,” Lin said. “So they couldn’t speak to a reporter. We had to do a lot of filling in a lot of the emotional detective work about what was going on in the house and where they were at emotionally.”
Liu speaks some dialogue taken directly from the article. It weighed on her, especially when Irene says she wants no one to remember them.
“It’s just devastating to think that she felt such a sense of shame to basically make herself invisible and to delete any part of herself from the world,” Liu said.
