Movie Review: 'Rosemead' Tastes the Bitter, and the Sweet, of a Mother's Love
Lucy Liu delivers an unforgettable performance in a film based on tragic true events
We hear often of America’s mental health crisis. It’s something politically expedient to point to after a mass shooting; it’s a handy scapegoat to explain the growing numbers of the unhoused; it’s a convenient subject for hand-wringing from both the left and the right when the issue is paired with topics relating to the country’s youth. But it’s also a real concern, one that, despite endless lip service, remains inadequately addressed.
(Lucy Liu and Larence Shou in Rosemead. Vertical)
That’s the backdrop for Eric Lin’s film Rosemead, a cinematic account of the tragedies suffered by a family in the California town of that name. Based on a 2017 Los Angeles Times column written by Frank Shyong, and adapted by Marilyn Fu together with Lin, the movie details the mounting causes for a family’s despair. Irene (Liu) is doing her best to run the family’s print shop business while looking after Joe (Lawrence Shou), her teenage son, who suffers from schizophrenia and is struggling with grief following the death of his father. Joe seems to focus on two things: On the one hand, he retreats to memories of happy times when he was younger and his family were living at motel; on the other hand, he’s morbidly obsessed with school shootings, demonstrating an ongoing fascination with perpetrators and their weapons. But is he at risk of becoming a perpetrator himself? Or is he simply terrified beyond relief of becoming a victim? An active shooter drill is enough to send him into an episode of panic and destruction; he seems to be delusional, screaming for a nonexistent attacker to stay away. Staffers at Joe’s school are growing concerned, but Irene is downright terrified for him when she learns that the cancer she has been battling is no longer responding to treatment. She is going to die soon, and Joe is about to turn 18, at which point social services (and the law) will view him as an adult. As his behavior grows more and more extreme, Irene begins to contemplate extreme measures.
(Lucy Liu and Larence Shou in Rosemead. Vertical)
The film is sympathetic to Irene, but it doesn’t shy away from its topic. When Joe goes missing, Irene does everything in her power, including creating missing person fliers, scouring the city, and enlisting Joe’s friends to search for him, but there’s a sense that she’s on her own in trying to steer her son toward some semblance of safety. Liu’s work, along with that of Shou and Lin’s direction, makes this a devastating gut punch of a movie.
“Rosemead” opens in theaters on January 9, 2025.