Rosemead Review: No Good Choices Left

Lucy Liu just had one of the best years of her career, and because she’s so consistently good, most audiences probably never noticed. In January, she delivered a devastating turn in Steven Soderbergh’s Presence, a film Neon (mis)marketed as a haunted house thriller when it was really about a family splintering under the weight of unspoken tragedy. In December, a new generation was introduced to her fantastic work with the release of Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair. Watching the 4 1/2 hour film 19 years after it debuted as two parts, Liu’s sequence as a deadly yakuza leader remains a breathless highlight. 

Now, in Rosemead, she bookends 2025 with another mother caught in an impossible situation. This time, she’s a terminally ill widow in California whose teenage son is exhibiting increasingly violent behavior linked to his schizophrenia. Faced with few options, she makes a decision that says more about the failure of our health care system and supposed support than her responsibilities as a parent. Both her performance in Presence and Rosemead demand everything from Liu, and both times she delivers.

Based on a 2017 Los Angeles Times article by Frank Shyong (don’t click on the link if you don’t want the ending spoiled immediately), director Eric Lin‘s feature debut tells the story of Irene (Liu), a Chinese American woman living in California’s San Gabriel Valley who hides her cancer diagnosis from her son Joe (Lawrence Shou) while trying to manage his worsening mental health. When Joe’s obsessions turn dark—fixating on school shootings, visiting gun shops, destroying property—Irene finds herself racing against her own mortality to protect him and, perhaps, those around him.

It’s a devastatingly heavy premise, and Liu handles these turns with the utmost care and respect for her character and, I have to believe, the family the story sprung from. Shou, in his feature debut after being cast from hundreds of self-tape submissions, matches her intensity beat for beat. Their scenes together have a baked-in tension that feels authentic to the push-pull of parenting a child whose mind is betraying them. Liu’s quieter moments with her friend and co-worker Kai-Li (Jennifer Lim, The Farewell) offer brief respites that only make the storm feel more inevitable.

Lin, a celebrated cinematographer making his directorial debut, shows promise even as some first-flight wobbles are evident. Screenwriter Marilyn Fu, who won a Creative Promise Award at Tribeca for The Sisterhood of Night, finds rhythm in the dialogue even when the pacing doesn’t quite support it. At 97 minutes, Rosemead sometimes feels like it’s circling the same emotional territory without advancing—I almost wonder if a longer-form short might have landed with more concentrated impact.

Lyle Vincent‘s cinematography is appropriately stark and unadorned, mirroring the closing walls of Irene and Joe’s world. As their options narrow, so does the daylight. Editor Joseph Krings handles the finale with sensitivity, never sensationalizing what is, ultimately, a sad tale of loss on multiple levels.

The film wisely avoids grandstanding about mental illness, gun culture, or the failures of community support systems, though they are clearly on its mind. Lin and Fu keep their focus on the relationship between mother and son, on the lengths a parent will go to protect their child even as death approaches. It’s a justifiably lauded performance from Liu, and it’s unfortunate that these kinds of brilliantly etched characters from actors who have given their all to this business aren’t met with greater recognition. Some performances deserve to be seen, even when the films housing them are hard to watch.