Movie Review: ROSEMEAD

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: December 2nd, 2025 / 12:54 AM

Rating: R
Stars: Lucy Liu, Lawrence Shou, Jennifer Lim, Madison Hu, James Chen, Eleven Lee, Orion Lee
Writer: Marilyn Fu, additional writing by Eric Lin, inspired by Frank Shyong’s LOS ANGELES TIMES article
Director: Eric Lin
Distributor: Vertical
Release Date: December 5, 2025 (New York), December 12, 2025 (Los Angeles), January 9, 2026 (wide)

Rosemead the city is a little working-class suburban community bordering the San Gabriel Mountains in Los Angeles County. Many of the residents are immigrants from China and Taiwan or Chinese-Americans. ROSEMEAD the movie takes place in its title hamlet, but what it depicts could transpire in some form almost anywhere.

ROSEMEAD begins with the twinkling lights of the valley beyond, then settles on an inexpensive two-story motel that takes on significance as the story unfolds.

Irene (Lucy Liu), originally from Taiwan, owns and operates a print shop in a Rosemead strip mall. She is also undergoing experimental treatments for cancer.

Irene and her seventeen-year-old son Joe (Lawrence Shou) both mourn the recent passing of Irene’s husband/Joe’s father (Orion Lee) not long ago. Joe previously was a good student and a champion swimmer, but he’s begun to unravel. His father’s death is a factor, but Joe also suffers from schizophrenia and hears whispering voices.

Joe is getting psychiatric counseling and medication from caring Dr. Hsu and has good friends who are his classmates at school. But Joe doesn’t know how to ask for help. Irene is better at this to an extent, but when she mentions that Joe is seeing a mental health professional, her own friends tell her that she sounds like “a foreigner.”

Liu is so effective in conveying Irene’s quiet anguish as Joe deteriorates that she keeps us invested throughout ROSEMEAD’s troubling but credible journey.

Director Eric Lin, who did “additional writing” on the screenplay by Marilyn Fu, based on a Los Angeles Times article by Frank Shyong, establishes a tone of quiet distress. Crucially, the filmmakers and actor Shou convince us that Joe is helpless in the grip of his mental demons.

ROSEMEAD suffers from a curious issue that is the inverse of something that plagues many other dramas. The film straddles a divide of trying to make a film that speaks directly to the Asian-American and Asian immigrant audience, without “othering” them for or excluding the rest of the audience.

Instead of assuming that a specific situation somehow applies to everyone, ROSEMEAD seeks to make Irene’s troubles at least somewhat related to her upbringing, but it’s actually relatively universal.

Yes, the system fails Irene in places, but bureaucracy is known for that. Likewise, concerns about what will happen when they are no longer able to provide care are paramount for most parents of a child who cannot be self-sufficient as an adult. Many adults are also stuck in the agonizing position of weighing what’s best for the young person against what’s best for other people if violent tendencies are surfacing.

ROSEMEAD has moments where it lags. Still, it is persuasively harrowing and gets us to ask ourselves the uncomfortable question of what we would do in Irene’s shoes.

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