THE STORY – At 53 years old, Feng Xia, a Chinese immigrant in Montreal, finally confronts her repressed desire for women and begins a secret affair with a young Québécoise. This adventure brings her passionate love and a betrayal of her moral life.
THE CAST – Joan Chen & Charlotte Aubin
THE TEAM – Xiaodan He (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 117 Minutes
There is a specific kind of bravery required to stage a revolution within the quiet confines of a life already half-lived. In “Montreal, My Beautiful,” filmmaker Xiaodan He captures this internal uprising through the lens of Feng Xia, a 53-year-old Chinese immigrant whose existence has been whittled down to a series of duties. The film arrives decorated with accolades, including a Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Joan Chen’s lead performance, and for good reason. Chen, an icon of the screen from “The Last Emperor” to “Twin Peaks,” delivers a performance of profound, nuanced vulnerability that anchors this story of awakened desire.
We first meet Feng Xia in a state of physical and emotional deflation, navigating a household defined by a quiet, simmering disconnect. The film articulates the profound chasm that can exist between immigrant parents and their children born into a new culture—a divide most strikingly felt during a pivotal dinner scene in which the family sits together yet remains fundamentally separate. To the husband, his children are like aliens sharing their home, a sentiment underscored by the fact that the daughter and son speak in French while the parents respond in Mandarin. This linguistic barrier forces the daughter to act as a bridge even during intimate doctor’s appointments, a role she eventually rejects with a sharp ultimatum. By accusing her mother of being “too lazy” to speak French, she gives Feng Xia the push she needs to emerge from her husband’s shadow and finally claim her own agency.
Feng Xia and her husband own a convenience store, a retail purgatory for a man who used to build roads but now finds his experience disregarded because he lacks a Québec education. Amidst the domestic misery of a household strained by professional stagnation, Feng Xia enrolls in a French class. It is here that she meets Joseph, a fellow immigrant whose candid admission that he moved to Montreal to be with the man he loves stirs a visceral reaction in her. She gasps, a sound of profound joy that signals the start of her own age of discovery.
The film utilizes their conversations to deliver some of its most compelling dialogue, moving beyond surface observation to explore the weight of long-buried longing. Feng Xia looks at Joseph as someone lucky to have found such a connection. When asked about her own husband, she describes them as an “old couple,” a phrasing that feels more like a quiet resignation than a partnership. Her curiosity is both tender and searching; she asks Joseph if he is ever scared to be with a man, a question that reflects her own budding trepidation as she begins to experience sexual desires she has long buried. This interaction becomes a vital gateway, as Joseph’s openness introduces her to the world of dating websites, finally opening her eyes to a landscape of possibility she had never before dared to navigate.
The film truly finds its heartbeat when Feng Xia enters a secret affair with Camille (Charlotte Aubin), a spirited, 30-year-old Québécoise. Cinematographer Marie Davignon captures the balmy, joyful Montreal summer as a backdrop for this forbidden love, while Gaëtan Gravel’s score—reminiscent at times of the yearning strings in “Carol”—allows us to live in the quiet moments of their connection. Feng Xia is initially incredibly shy, keeping her hand on her purse strap like she is about to leave at any second, but Camille brings out her confidence. In their first moments of intimacy, Chen conveys a quivering mixture of desire and fear, a portrayal of an older woman’s sensuality that feels as radical as it is tender.
The narrative refuses to ignore the steep cost of this liberation. Feng Xia is a romantic person trapped in a loveless marriage, burdened by the weight of her own moral conflict. We see her start to lose herself, forgetting to pick her son up from school as she becomes wrapped up in her feelings for Camille. Yet, the film proves the genuineness of their bond in every moment, even unglamorous ones, such as when Feng Xia cares for a drunken Camille in the hospital. This care, her feelings for Camille, her desire to be close to her, transcends a mere fling, connecting back to a sun-drenched flashback of Feng Xia’s childhood—a memory of a first crush that reveals she has been carrying this longing for decades.
The relationship is defined by a series of exquisite, quiet observations that confirm its depth. We see it in the way the film lets us live in their silence, or in the specific, electric effect of Camille’s gaze; at one point, Camille brushes Feng Xia’s arm, and she immediately places her own hand there afterward, as if trying to preserve the warmth of the touch. There is such a joyous feeling to their connection, especially in a sweet scene on a park bench where they finally begin to know one another truly. Feng Xia finds in Camille an ear that will finally listen, allowing her to confess the painful truth that her children were born out of duty rather than love, while Camille, who feels completely lost in her own life, finds a similar anchor in Feng Xia.
While the film proves to be one of the greats at capturing a romantic relationship between two women, it does stumble in its ending. It manages to avoid the stereotypical traps of misery and woe so common in queer cinema. Still, it introduces a bit of unnecessary drama that threatens to disrupt the story’s gentle rhythm. This tug-and-pull of the final act, while illustrating the complex conflict over how one thinks their life should be, feels slightly abrupt. Though their connection feels entirely realized and genuine, the film could have benefited from a few more minutes to provide a clearer sense of resolution or continuation for the pair, rather than leaving the ending feeling somewhat unfinished.
While the film stumbles a bit in its ending, it can’t diminish the film’s staggering heart or its quiet, gentle power. “Montreal, My Beautiful” is a stunningly simple work that manages to pack an immense emotional weight into its intimate frame, producing a feeling that is ultimately joyous and restorative. It is a celebratory story that proves the arrival of happiness doesn’t have a deadline, finding two women trapped in their own distinct melancholies who somehow managed to coax the light out of one another. In a cinematic landscape that so often ignores the interior lives and burgeoning desires of older women, seeing Joan Chen navigate this awakening with such grace is a rare gift. The film serves as a moving testament to the fact that it is never too late to break free from a cage of duty and finally live in the clarity of one’s own truth.
