Joan Chen delivers a quietly masterful performance as a Chinese immigrant wife and mother who begins a long-delayed rebirth in Xiaodan He’s Montreal, My Beautiful.
Chen plays Feng Xia, a 53-year-old immigrant who has spent the last 14 years running a Montreal convenience store with her husband, Jun, and raising their two children, Joy (Pei Yao Xu) and Dong Dong (Anzhe “Angelo” Zhang). Bound by cultural expectations and a deep sense of duty, Feng Xia has spent her life putting herself last. The result is a loneliness that simmers just beneath the surface of domestic routine.
Not fluent in French, Feng Xia’s world is limited to a small corner of the city, often relying on her daughter to act as translator for her. As menopause ushers in an unexpected period of self-reflection, she takes her first step toward independence by enrolling in a French class for newcomers. There, she meets fellow transplants, including Joseph (Zion-Luna Ribeaux Valdès), a young queer Cuban man whose openness nudges Feng Xia to confront her long-buried desires, which began when she was a young woman in China. Encouraged by Joseph, she secretly ventures into online dating, where she meets Camille (Charlotte Aubin), a café worker whose presence awakens something tender and transformative.
Director Xiaodan He has described the film as a “love letter to Montreal,” and that’s certainly true, but it’s also a love letter to summer afternoons, park-bench lunches, unexpected friendships, and the possibility of self-discovery at any age. Chen and Aubin share a gentle, palpable chemistry, drawing viewers into a romance that feels both thrilling and fragile. It is easy to cheer Feng Xia on in her double-life while the threat of being found out simmers below the surface. Is it this fear that makes the romance so delicious, or is it truly Feng Xia’s awakening?
Intricate and restrained, this is Chen’s film to carry, and she does so beautifully, having learned French phonetically to inhabit the role with remarkable nuance. While Jun could easily be framed as a caricature of a hard-nosed immigrant with a strong work ethic, he functions instead as a reflection of the expectations placed on dutiful wives, but also on the “breadwinner”. He is not without empathy as audiences see his Canadian life isn’t quite what he had hoped for either. By most measures, the family has achieved the immigrant dream: a business, a home, thriving children. Feng Xia’s pride in her daughter Joy is unmistakable as she watches her interact with her friends and talk about future plans. The cost of that success, however, is deeply personal for Feng Xia.
Xiaodan He, who also wrote the script, never judges Feng Xia’s choices. The film doesn’t seek to define what makes a good immigrant, wife, or mother; it simply observes the quiet accumulation of the decisions that shape a life. In giving Feng Xia the space to imagine a different life, Montreal, My Beautiful offers something rare: compassion for the quiet sacrifices that often go unseen and the courage it takes to finally stop making them.
Montreal, My Beautiful has already made a strong impression on the festival circuit. Opening in cinemas February 13, the film has earned accolades, including Best Performance in a Canadian Film for Chen from the Toronto Film Critics’ Association, and Best Canadian Film honours at both the Windsor International Film Festival and Reel Asian Film Festival.
A tender, assured feature, Montreal, My Beautiful is both a love letter to a city and a moving reminder that self-discovery doesn’t belong only to the young.
See it in theatres, beginning February 13.
