Harriet Klausner's Review Archive
In Wilmington, North Carolina, Shelley and Martin Marino are arguing over adopting a Vietnamese orphan. She strongly wants to while he says no as he has two adult children from his first marriage and does not want to raise someone else's offspring especially in his middle age years though he also hides from his wife a deeper fear of how he will react as he served in the military in Nam during the conflict.
Shelley refuses to give up her dream so she turns to neighborhood Vietnamese grocery store owner Xuan Mai who fled the communist regime over two decades ago for advice. With her spousal rejection of the adoption including his refusal to accompany her to Southeast Asia, she hopes to persuade Mai to go with her. Mai wants to accompany her, as Mai has estranged family still living in Viet Nam, but hesitates over the welcome one would receive after being gone so long would receive.
This is an interesting look at American-Viet Nam relationships from the viewpoints of the three protagonists. Fretfully Martin fears the awakening of the nightmares that he buried; Shelley innocently seeks completeness with the right child; and hesitantly Xuan wonders if you can really go home. The story line switches perspective and turns insightful once the players reach Viet Nam. However, though Dana Sachs' shows her love for the nation, everything and everyone ties up too neat. This subtracts from the merging of the disturbing storms of the three "outsiders" with locals into an emotional tsunami.