Double Happiness (film)

Jade Li is a feisty Chinese-Canadian aspiring actress who lives at home with her traditional Chinese family, which includes her strict father, her dutiful mother, and younger sister Pearl. Jade and Pearl's older brother, Winston, has been disowned—a fate Jade is not eager to share, both for her own sake and to spare her family pain.

Her family tries to put on the perfect public persona at all costs so as to maintain their dignity as well as uphold their traditional Chinese values. One primary part of this persona is prosperity. Jade's father hopes that true financial prosperity will become reality through penny stocks. Jade, meanwhile, tries to achieve that happy medium between giving in to her parents' wishes and fulfilling her own needs and desires - double happiness. Therefore, although she manages to land a few bit parts on camera, Jade spends most of her time working in the shop owned by a family friend, performing the duties of a respectful daughter and suffering through arranged dates with prosperous young Chinese men (Including one who is gay). An adept cultural chameleon, though, she also leads a double life, hanging out with best friend Lisa.

When her father's childhood friend arrives for a visit, Jade must juggle her competing identities even more carefully than usual, lest her choice of professions—and boyfriends—shame her father. Because of its instability, Jade's parents don't understand or widely publicize Jade's aspirations to be an actress. Their main want for Jade is to date and marry a nice Chinese boy, a goal for which Jade's extended family also strives as they are always trying to introduce her to Chinese boys. Initially, they believe that the boy is Andrew, with who Jade even agrees to go out. But Jade, beyond wanting to be an actress, wishes her family had more western sensibilities. She is attracted to a slightly awkward but persistent Caucasian English graduate student named Mark. Jade has to figure out how to both please her family, who would not approve of her dating a Caucasian, and be true to herself. Her older brother is already out of the picture for that very reason. Naturally, something must give sooner or later, and the facade of the perfect Chinese daughter soon begins to crumble.

On review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, Double Happiness has an approval rating of 73% based on 11 reviews.[6]

Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars and wrote director Mina Shum "establishes a chatty, confiding tone right at the top and follows through, like a long letter from a good friend. By the end, she has told a story that has been told uncounted times for centuries on this continent, which was settled by people who left home and yet tried to bring it with them. What she brings to it is sweetness and style, and she gets a warm performance from Sandra Oh".[4] Marjorie Baumgarten of The Austin Chronicle wrote the film "comes as close to the expression of multiculturalism as anything I've seen in a long time" and added, "As Jade, actress Sandra Oh gives a rich performance that conveys a satisfying sense of the character's dilemmas, passions, cheekiness, and talent."[7] Baumgarten gave the film 4 out of 5 stars and concluded, "Everywhere one turns in Double Happiness there is evidence of cultural differences and cognitive dissonance. The triumph of Double Happiness is in hearing laughter and sweetness in the sounds of dissonance."[7]

• Melnyk, George (2014). "The City of Dysfunction". Film and the City: The Urban Imaginary in Canadian Cinema. Athabasca University Press. ISBN 9781927356593.
• Double Happiness at IMDb
• Double Happiness at AllMovie