Rosemead Review
Rosemead (2025) Film Review from the 24th Annual Tribeca Film Festival, a movie directed by Eric Lin, written by Eric Lin and Marilyn Fu, and starring Lucy Liu, Lawrence Shou, Orion Lee, Jennifer Lim, Madison Hu, James Chen, Strle Mateja, Eleven Lee, and Zack Calderon.
For cinematographer-turned-writer/director Eric Lin, he has created something truly moving as he explores the complicated relationship between a widowed mother and schizophrenic son in his feature-length debut, Rosemead. Inspired by a true story that took place in the East Los Angeles neighborhood this film gets its name from, Rosemead is a patient and contemplative film that follows our characters with empathy and objectivity as a mother and son are pushed to the brink in dealing with loss, terminal cancer, and mental illness.
The film opens with a levitating shot through a Los Angeles motel parking lot and stops outside a room as we peer inside at a small family singing and dancing in front of the glow of a television screen. A moment that lives somewhere between a dream and a faded memory, this image of our happy family is something Lin will draw his characters back to over the course of the film. Happiness lives within the walls of that run-of-the-mill motel, but unfortunately almost nowhere else in the world of the Rosemead.
Once Lin establishes that pivotal moment in our characters’ story, he introduces us to their world outside the motel. Take everything you think you may know about Lucy Liu’s acting chops before this and throw it out the door. Usually associated with action films like Kill Bill and Charlie’s Angels, Liu shatters any box Hollywood placed her in and turns in a performance of her career as Iris.
A Chinese immigrant (half her dialogue is spoken in Mandarin) and widowed mother, Iris is left to care for her troubled teenage son, Joe, all by herself. In addition to her lone parental duties, Iris is also a successful business owner who must juggle her professional career while raising Joe. Oh, and she has lung cancer. Not exactly a laugh riot.
Joe (Lawerence Shou) comes off as your typical teenage boy. Hanging out with friends, talking to girls (or at least trying to), but after a therapy session towards the beginning of the film, we learn that Joe has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. An illness that first reared its ugly head after the traumatizing death of his father. Joe and Iris do their best, but the further his mental health continues to degrade, the more Iris’ denial continues to grow. Rather than discuss the mental status of her son, Iris hides their pain and struggles behind closed doors, even though friends and family can see in through cracks in the wood.
Common amongst many different cultures throughout the world, Iris avoids discussing Joe’s mental status or the blood she’s been coughing up with friends and family. It’s important to note that the film takes place in 2010, and even though that’s only fifteen years ago, mental health has become a much more open and accepting topic in American culture, especially amongst men.
Tragically, the movie’s portrayal of school shootings feels even more relevant today than it did in 2010. Over the course of the film, school shootings are continually mentioned in background television and news spots, and each time Joe seems more interested. Not out of fear, but out of his paranoid delusions brought on by the escalating schizophrenia. It is a perfect storm that builds to a devastating final act.
The majority of viewers (including myself) who are unfamiliar with the true story that Rosemead is inspired by won’t know where this picture is headed, but you get the sense early on that it won’t end well. Rosemead is a harrowing and touching display of mental health that first-time director Eric Lin expertly navigates.
You can only run away from trauma, illness, and psychiatric issues for so long before they inevitably rise to the surface. Unfortunately, the love between a mother and her son isn’t strong enough to conquer them, because if it were, Iris and Joe would never know a day of pain.
Rating: 8/10
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