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Wonderful character development!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I liked the comic touch of the movie, and Michelle Krusiec delivered the comic scenes admirably well. No-nonsense but with a degree of self-awareness, the very lovely Krusiec captured the character Wil perfectly. Joan Chen, unsurprisingly, gave another excellent performance as a stern mother but a defiant daughter. The movie owes much of its success to casting Krusiec and Chen in their respective roles.The story is simple, and even a little clichéd. Tension between social pressure and individualistic pursuits of passion, between conservative norm and following what the heart truly desires. Alice Wu--as a first-time director--was competent, though there's still much room to further refine her craftsmanship. Wu is apparently at her best when shooting intimate scenes (not only the romantically intimate ones) with subtle emotional exchanges and silent communications. But she's weaker in sewing together the scenes--especially toward the end, the movie occasionally feels a little clumsy and lumpy.The late and rather melodramatic revelation of the identity of the baby's father did not help either. The decision to not devote more screen time to developing/explaining the relationship between Ma and the baby's father is certainly a risky one. Depending on perspective, one may feel his/her sympathy toward Ma is taken for granted, or may even feel the very idea the film is advocating is being made fun of. While this subplot is just a subplot complementing the Wil-Vivian relationship, slightly more in-depth treatment is probably warranted especially as a surprise is sprung on the audience.But overall, the acting and sincerity more than compensated the glitches and shortfalls. Often light and funny, humorous but reserved, the movie is another worthy exploration of generation clash.

I liked just about everything about this. The characters, and the clash of expectations between older and younger generations of Chinese Americans, seemed completely true to life, and the sense of a community was well brought out. It is amazing that this is the director's first film (but she is older than she looks in the Behind the Scenes featurette). Particular pleasures were the grandmother's evident boredom with her husband's pomposities, Vivian's fumbling with Chinese, which she evidently didn't speak normally despite her background, the scene in the church, and the payoff. It's not entirely clear how old Wil is meant to be (given her mother's age, hardly out of her twenties, which seems young for the responsible position she seems to have in the hospital), and it was not made at all clear how Wil's mother had got into some kind of affair with Little Yu that went far enough for her to become pregnant. But overall, tremendous.

OK...krusiec has to work on her spit take a bit, but i guess it wasn't bad for a girl... ;-) i am not a big fan of 'romantic comedies'. but i guess one of the things this movie reminded me is that genre doesn't matter as long as it's well done... i LOVED this film. kept me amused throughout. and no, i'm not Asian OR lesbian. as if that's supposed to matter...but, just in case you were thinking i was predisposed... the first(and only)review i read said something about 'not having stereotypical roles'... ???????????????????????? REALLY?!!?! OK. like i said, not Asian. (and they were) but, according to what i've been exposed to(and i HAVE been exposed. you'll just have to take my word on this), i saw almost nothing BUT stereotypes... but wu, as any strong writer will, uses them to her advantage. (including reversing the stereotypes of blacks with the Jay character. that snip with him sitting on the steps with the cosmetic face mask on? GOD, this movie was good!)AND i was surprised a few times. that rarely happens for me. i'm the person who usually guesses 'the big secrets', etc. that lots of movies contain...not this one. that was one of THE most enjoyable hour and a halves i've spent in a long time...and i see, on the avg, 10 movies a week. some of them really good. this was OBVIOUSly a labor of love... thank you for making my face feel like it was going to crack in half from smiling so wide...and laughing, laughing, laughing... ps i dug your unmistakable 'graduate' nod.

Excellent movie. I wasn't too confident about the movie but after I've seen it I can say that is one o the best I've seen lately.It's funny,witty and deals with modern day issues. Actually, old problems - love,but in new ways.It's worth seeing and I can't wait for another movie from Alice Wu. I think she reached her goal : "What I really wanted is that a 25-year-old white guy could suddenly relate to a 48-year-old Chinese woman ...or a 50-year-old black man could relate to a 29-year-old Chinese doctor. If that works, I've done my job. Once we strip away the differences, we're remarkably similar." Good luck with "Foreign Babes in Beijing "