Red Doors

A gentle, pleasant film about people you genuinely like.

Following Woody Allen, Ang Lee and any number of sitcoms, Georgia Lee constructs her well-shot, well-written film around three daughters.

Think of Red Doors as a promise, and hope that Georgia Lee keeps it.

Packs five films' worth of drama, crises and revelations into one, and often lapses into sitcom triteness.

Everything you'd expect from a frosh-indie effort: stilted dialogue, oversimplified relationships, sitcommy goofiness, and cringe-inducing romances. And yet Red Doors is so well-meaning, with such obvious affection for its characters, that it pleases nonetheless.

Ma, who portrayed the stone-faced General in the Coen brothers' comedy "The Lady Killers," once again plays his role largely silent. As the despondent Ed, Ma says more with a few facial expressions & twitches than most performers could hope to with a three-page monologue.

A lightly feminist, good-naturedly comic sketch of a Chinese-American family in crisis. But despite pic's earnestness and obvious good intentions, narrative elements, carefully set forth though they may be, fall back on overfamiliar, underdeveloped tropes.