rosemead

LINK: rosemead

What’s movie are you looking forward to watching?

TW: gun violence, death

First of all I adore Lucy Liu. She was incredible in Elementary, where she redefined Watson with her quiet intelligence and emotional depth.

SPOILER ALERT

If you are unfamiliar with what happened in Rosemead in the SGV in 2015, this movie details what happened. It is based on a true story.

Lucy Liu portrays Irene, a single Taiwanese American mother living with terminal cancer. She is raising her son Joe, a high-achieving student and swimmer, whose life begins to unravel after the death of his father. Joe is then diagnosed with schizophrenia, as his symptoms exacerbate (hallucinations, delusions, and emotional outbursts).

Irene is fighting two battles at once. She is trying to care for a son whose mental illness is becoming increasingly unmanageable, while also coming to terms with her declining health.

Asian American and immigrant circles respond to mental health differently. Mental health is treated as a taboo, something shameful, something to hide. Seeking treatment is not seen as care but as a reflection of parental failure. Irene is painstakingly aware that the other Chinese/Taiwanese immigrant families are gossiping about her son and questioning why he is seeing a psychiatrist. To save face, she lies, telling others that Joe is attending a local family center because he is interested in psychology, not because he needs therapy.

As Joe’s symptoms worsen, warning signs pile up. Irene discovers school shootings searches online and that he has visited a gun shop. These discoveries intensifies her fear, not only for Joe’s safety, but for the safety of others, and what might happen if his illness went untreated or unmanaged.

At the same time, she learns that the experimental cancer treatment that she was relying on is no longer effective. Her prognosis is reduced to just a few months. The reality sets in for Irene that once Joe turns 18, she will lose custody and control over his medical care. She feared that he would stop taking his medication, fall through the cracks of the system, or act on his delusions without anyone there to intervene.

On Joe’s 18th birthday, Irene takes him to a motel where they shared happier times. They eat cake together, and she gives him a pair of white sneakers. Joe suggests that they stay at the motel forever, away from the outside world. While he sleeps, Irene shoots her son. She grieves immediately after, then calls the local authorities. She is arrested, but she dies of cancer before she can stand trial.

This is a truly tragic story…