Under One Roof (film)
| Under One Roof | |
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| Directed by | Todd Wilson |
| Produced by | Chris Chung |
| Written by | David Lewis |
| Starring |
Jay Wong James Marks Sandra Lee James Quedado |
| Music by | Jack Curtis Dubowsky |
| Cinematography | Dan Schmeltzer |
| Edited by | Todd Wilson |
| Distributed by | TLA Releasing (video) |
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Release date
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Running time
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76 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English Chinese |
Under One Roof is a 2002 independent gay-themed romance film directed by Todd Wilson. Shot on digital video, the film tells the story of a young gay Chinese-American man's search for true love and family acceptance within a framework of traditional norms. Under One Roof played worldwide at LGBTQ film festivals following its release.
Daniel Chang (Wong) is a twenty-something second-generation Chinese-American living at home in San Francisco with his widowed mother, who can speak broken English, and his grandmother (his father's mother), who cannot speak English. Ever since his father died, he has fulfilled his patriarchal duty as first and only son by managing the family business and looking after his mother. Being gay, he avoids the second major responsibility of carrying on the family line through heterosexual marriage and reproduction. Out of respect for his mother's values, he tries to keep, as he puts it, his home life and his "homo life" separate. By not directly telling his mother that he is gay, he has unwittingly found himself in a tense but hilarious situation where his mother continually pressures him to marry women of her choosing. Luckily, Daniel's female friend, Michelle, graciously rescues him from the constant onslaught of potential dates by pretending to be his steady girlfriend (for a price), which deflects his need to come out to his mother.
Besides the extra money Mrs. Chang makes playing Mahjong, she also rents out the basement illegally. Daniel relates how he was quite happy to leave the previous female tenant alone. Daniel expects his mother to replace the previous tenant with another woman and is astounded when the new tenant turns out to be Robert, a young attractive white man from Indiana. Daniel immediately has a crush on him. Following a plumbing mishap that floods the basement with raw sewage, Mrs. Chang apologetically moves Robert into the only other bedroom that is not hers—Daniel's room. Even though reality has merged with Daniel's deepest fantasies, he bows to the paranoia that his mother will find out he is gay and decides to sleep on the living room sofa. Mrs. Chang eventually kicks Daniel off the couch so she can watch her late-night TV programs, and he is forced to share his bed with Robert. Daniel manages to be prudish for a few nights but eventually the two become lovers.
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Wikipedia