Alice Wu's "Saving Face" examines the relationship between the semi-closeted lesbian Wilhelmina and dancer Vivian in the context of three generations of Chinese Americans living in New York City. As Wu deftly navigates issues of sexual orientation, traditional Chinese customs, and family pride, she creates new scenarios for viewers to reflect on their own experiences with norm setting. When Wil's mother has a child out of wedlock, the immediate response is to set her up with any eligible bachelor, despite her unwillingness to remarry. Wil's mother finds herself besieged by a line of suitors, each more eccentric than the next, while Wil herself struggles to breach the topic of her homosexuality with her mother. The idea of suitable partners and marriage being a question of a family union instead of an individual one manifests in Wu's production of a film that plays to deeper questions about the Asian community and its integration into the American way of life. While "Saving Face" makes an attempt to tie up the loose strands of the story, Wu forfeits her credibility by with a wedding finale that includes a sequence of feel-good events and reconciliations. Against the backdrop of a plot that critiques the arbitrariness of social norms, this ending almost appears to betray the prior events of the story, which set more stringent conditions for "proper" lifestyles.