Joy Luck Club

The Joy Luck Club is a powerful film. As an Indian immigrant to the country, I related a lot to the struggle all main characters had with reconciling their Asian identity/traditions with their Western ideals. Having the movie focus on the main characters relationships with their mothers, and then showing not only their own but their mothers' perspectives and their backstories is what sets this movie apart.

It's one thing to say, this is how I feel about some of the strange beliefs, paranoias and desires that my mom has, but another thing to then show how your mom came upon those traditions.

The movie spans three strong Asian American parents and how they ended up in US, and the hopes and dreams they carried with them. Their daughters have at some point struggled to relate to their parents' perspective. One daughter Waverly, always performed well in chess, but is turned off by how her mom shows off her ability to all her friends. She gets into an argument with her mom, and says that she never wants to play chess again. Her mom does not budge from her stance, and lets her make the independent decision. When Waverly decides she wants to play again, her mom remarks that it is not so easy to play once practice is lost. Waverly loses confidence from that point, and her mom's intentions, although always good, really hold a high regard in decisions she makes for better or worse. Her mom's back story *** SPOILER ALERT *** is that she built that toughness through being in an unfortunate situation in her youth where she was arranged to marry a pre-pubescent boy. She used superstitions and dramatics to convince her mother in law that the match was cursed and it would be fatal for her husband to get out of the situation. From that point she left China to build a better life for herself and her future child. When hearing that, you can admit that there is a reason she is tough on her daughter to understand how lucky she is to have the opportunity to practice such an art.


This is an example of the type of stories that the movie covers. It's an intriguing film that examines that there is often a why before a how, and how the lives of your parents can often affect your own.