What We Were PromisedGenre: Drama
Director: Ang Lee
Writer: Eden Townsend
Based on the novel by Lucy Tan
Cast: Constance Wu, Pom Klementieff, Henry Golding, Steven Yeun, Chow Yun-Fat, Aubrey Anderson-Emmons, Daniel Wu, Gemma Chan, Choi Min-sik, Michelle Yeoh, Manny Jacinto, Lewis Tan
Plot: In 1988, a young man and woman named Lina (Constance Wu) and Wei (Henry Golding) left Shanghai for a new life in America. It’s seen as a land of dreams and the future, and this rural-born Chinese couple is both nervous and excited about the changes to come.
Moving forward in time to 2010, a quiet, diligent, widowed woman from a rural village named Sunny (Pom Klementieff) works as a maid in a charming hotel in Shanghai called the Lanson Suites. Later in the day, She and her co-worker, Rose (Gemma Chan), are accused of stealing a bracelet from one of the taitai (housewives) that they clean for. Secretly, they resent the women they work for, who can be pretentious, lazy, and bossy. It turns out that the residents are Lina and Wei, who’s returned to Shanghai after living in America for about 15 years.
Wei now works as a marketing executive for an American firm, Medora, in Shanghai. As an ex-pat, he has many privileges that come with the job, such as expense-free lodgings in the luxurious Lanson Suites. Medora is hosting a reality TV show contest to attract new, young applicants and to garner publicity. Wei feels like a sell-out and is embarrassed by the celebrity he has gained. He is proud of the security he can provide for his family, but he is also worried that his wife may be bored by her life as a taitai. But at the same time, Wei suspects she may like the life of luxury. One night, Wei receives an unexpected phone call from his younger brother, Qiang (Steven Yeun), who he has not heard from in more than 20 years. Qiang is coming to visit them for the upcoming World Fair Expo.
Meanwhile, Lina spends her days in a daze with no work or purpose. While in America, Lina worked full-time as a teacher, but now she goes to breakfasts, swims in the apartment’s pool, goes shopping, volunteers, acts as a hostess, and supports her husband. She is upset because one of her bracelets has gone missing and believes one of the housemaids must have stolen it. Their 12-year-old daughter Karen (Aubrey Anderon-Emmons), who attends a boarding school in America, is home for the summer. She thinks that it may be a good idea to hire an ayi (like a nanny or an au pair) for the summer to be her companion and to take the pressure off of Lina so she could be a good host for Wei’s brother. She is nervous for Qiang’s visit and has flashbacks of her early years with Wei, while she was, unbeknownst to her husband, thinking wistfully of his brother. For the 22 years since he disappeared, Lina has harbored Qiang’s hidden feelings and now believes that he is coming not for the Expo but for her. Turns to Sunny, and Karen excitedly tells her that her parents think she is innocent of the bracelet theft and wants to hire her as an ayi. When Lina makes the proposal, she offers to double Sunny’s wages.
Back in time to Lina’s teenage years, The circumstances leading up to her arranged marriage with Wei, such as how she was raised with the knowledge that she would marry the promising young son of her father’s dearest friend one day. On the one hand, she liked the certainty that being betrothed to the most eligible boy gave her, but on the other hand, she’s bored of her hometown and wanted the adventure of a new experience and new friends. During the years leading up, she developed a familiarity with Wei’s younger brother Qiang.
Returns to the present and turns to Wei as he nervously anticipates his long-lost brother’s arrival. Wei wakes early and dresses for work, and heads to the clubhouse at Lanson Suites for breakfast. He realizes with embarrassment that it is Saturday and sits down to dine with several other fellow ex-pats and corporate executive men, and Lina joins him later. Turns to Sunny, who is texting her mother and her sister, who, unlike her, is married and pregnant. Despite her hesitations, Sunny decides to take Lina’s job offer and heads to Lanson Suites to accept. Rose texts her saying that her schedule has changed, and Sunny is worried about her friend, who will now become the prime suspect for the bracelet theft because of Sunny’s promotion. They meet for lunch the next day, and Sunny discovers that it was, in fact, Rose that stole the bracelet, out of resentment for Lina’s wealth and privilege. She begs Sunny to help her put the bracelet back, hoping this will save her job.
Back in time again to Lina’s teenage years, and recounting her senior year in high school. She gets closer to Qiang, who has dropped out of high school and has gotten involved in some sort of gang activity. He is kind and pleasant to be with. After her final exams, Lina spends her summer days exploring new places with Qiang as her guide.
Returns to the present and turns to Sunny, who arrives on Monday for her first day of work as the Zhen’s ayi. She takes the residents’ elevator up to their apartment for the first time, instead of the service elevator, and a new maid has been hired to do her old job for her, which she finds odd to witness. She misses the steady, quiet work of housekeeping and decides to help the new maid Joyce with her tasks while the family is out. In a moment of inspiration, she leans over the balcony and discreetly drops Lina’s stolen bracelet into the pool below, and then dials zero for the lobby to request that the pool be cleaned, drained, and refilled, hoping this will save Rose’s job.
Wei nervously awaits Qiang’s arrival. He recalls how Qiang used to taunt him with a shudder, calling him “Prince Wei.” He has a flashback of when Qiang first met Lina for the first time before college; Wei immediately liked him and was irritated when he thought Qiang was flirting with her. Back in the present, Lina interrupts his reverie, and they have sex. He notices how she is distant and wonders where her mind is. Qiang arrives, and the Zhens greet each other. The dynamic at dinner is tense. They learn Qiang is now a successful hospitality entrepreneur and is surprised by his transformation. When Qiang asks what Wei does and says he works for an American marketing firm, Wei criticizes him for bringing American products to the Chinese but not the other way around. When Qiang asks Lina if she is still working, Wei feels protective of his wife, who he feels Qiang is judging. After dinner, the brothers go to the balcony to smoke and speak privately. Wei criticizes Qiang for disappearing and not even attending their parent’s funeral, and Qiang challenges Wei for being the first to leave for America.
Turns to Lina and goes back in time again, to the summer before she left for college at Chujiao University in Hubei Province. Her parents are impressed that Wei has been accepted to the prestigious Fudan University and decide it is time for Lina to meet him. Lina thinks he is attractive, and after the party his parent’s host, she watches the Zhen brothers play basketball. Qiang sits beside her and mocks his brother for showing off. For the summer, she and Qiang spend many days together, swimming at the lake, playing cards, and talking about the future. She is both curious and worried about what he does, so on the last night before Lina leaves for college, he brings her to the house where he gambles. Cloudy, the stylish and bold young sister of one of the other gang members, keeps her company. Later that night, when she says goodbye to Qiang, he gives her a beautiful ivory bracelet from Africa that he won from gambling (the bracelet stolen from Lina.
Returns to Lina’s perspective in the present. At that first dinner, she noticed how Qiang had evolved and changed for the better. She waits all week for him to tell her why he came and whether it was for her. She and Wei argue that he is working so much, avoiding his brother and leave all of the hostings. One day, Lina and Qiang are alone for breakfast, and they discuss traveling and reading. Still, the conversation’s undertones are about the past lost opportunities and what they had together when they were young. Lina finds herself crying in front of him, and he comforts her.
Turns to Sunny, who has been watching the Zhen household’s tense dynamic since Qiang’s arrival, deciding she would rather not know what is between Lina and her brother-in-law. Rose calls to tell her she has been fired, and Sunny is worried about her friend. She heads to the internet café for the blind date Rose arranged for her and finds that Li Jun (Lewis Tan) is a kind and good man, someone with whom she could build a life together. However, after their first date, he asks if she could see them together long-term, and she wishes to give him the same directness and says that she has become used to living alone.
In the past of Lina’s years in college, she finds independence and intellectual stimulation. During the summer back home, she and Wei court and get to know each other emotionally and sexually. She’s drawn to his ambition and kindness. In the meantime, she and Qiang continue to communicate by letter, developing a more profound friendship. At college, she’s inspired by the feminist writings of Simone de Beauvoir. For the first time, she contemplates what opportunities she could have if she were to marry neither Wei nor Qiang.
Time goes by fast, she soon receives a proud letter from her father: Wei’s offered a full scholarship and allowance to attend graduate school, so she’d get married and join him in America. Back home, the night before her wedding, she and Qiang kiss and decide they want to be together. They agree to talk to their parents.
Turns to Wei in the present. The Zhens are ready to go to the Expo. This is the day that Sunny has been waiting for—it costs so much that if she had not been an ayi, she would not have had the opportunity—and the event that Qiang had supposedly come to Shanghai for. Wei receives a call from work saying they need him at the office, and Karen, who has no interest in the Expo, decides to join him at work, which means Sunny is forced to miss the Expo, and Lina and Qiang are left to spend the day alone. After work, Wei brings Karen and Sunny back home. He tries to get to know Sunny over dinner and is shocked by the difficulties she and her family have faced.
Lina is excited and nervous about spending the day with Qiang at the Expo. They explore the various pavilions of the Expo and bribe a security guard to let them into the UK pavilion at the end of the day. Lina loves the danger of trespassing after it is closed and realizes this is what life would have been like had she been with Qiang. She feels resentful and has a flashback of how she had broken her father’s heart by telling him she wanted to be with Qiang instead of Wei, and how he had kindly accepted her wish and gone to talk to Zhen Hong (Chow Yun-Fat), only to find that Qiang had not said anything to his father. The marriage went ahead, and Qiang disappeared without a word. After dancing around the topic all day at the Expo, they finally open the conversation. Lina discovers that Qiang is married to Sunny but that he wishes they had married instead. Lina demands an answer for what happened all those years ago.
Sunny is on her way out of the Zhens’ apartment after talking with Wei. On the road, the driver Little Cao (Manny Jacinto) receives a call from Lina, who says she needs his help to get her and Qiang out of the pavilion they have accidentally been locked into at the Expo. Sunny initially hesitate to indulge in gossip, but after a lot of prodding, she expresses her worry about Taitai and Qiang. Little Cao tries to cheer her up and convinces her to go out on the town with him, using Boss Zhen’s business cards to get into posh clubs and using his tab for drinks.
Wei is alone at home with Karen. He feels guilty for leaving Lina alone with his brother all day, especially when he hears that she has been locked into a pavilion with Qiang. He struggles to bond with his daughter while he awaits their release and return, realizing how distant they are. That night she gets her period for the first time, and in Lina’s absence, he tries to comfort her and help her figure out how to use a tampon. It is a comical father-daughter bonding scene in the end.
Back to Sunny, Little Cao’s convinced her to stop worrying about the Zhens and relax a little. While they wait for Expo security to release Lina and Qiang, Little Coa takes Sunny to a series of posh bars, impersonating Wei also running up his tab. He encourages her to seize the opportunities she’s been given and move out of the group living apartment. Sunny has a great time out. After a couple of drinks, she bumps into Li Jun. They agree to go on another date.
Lina, still at the Expo, is locked in the UK pavilion with Qiang. They find a bar in the VIP lounge, pouring themselves a drink. Qiang finally tells Lina the full truth: the story of their fathers. When university scholar Fang Lijian (Daniel Wu) was brought to the farm labor camp indoctrinated in socialist ideologies, he was separated from his wife and baby daughter (Lina). There, he met Zhen Hong, a kind and earnest farmer. Fang grew to like farming and came to appreciate the cause. He fell in love with a young woman named Yuzi, who had an infant son abandoned by her husband. When she died of tuberculosis, she begged Fang to take her baby. By then, a dear, close friend, Zhen Hong, offered to take the boy and raise him as his own, knowing what it would do to Fang’s family if he brought home someone else’s baby. In return, Fang promises his daughter to Zhen’s oldest son, making them a real family and fulfilling the revolution’s ideal of progress and unity across the classes: a farm boy and a scholar’s daughter married.
Returns to the present, and Lina is shocked by this story. It hits her that this orphaned boy is Qiang and that her father had cheated on her mother. She realizes that Qiang had done the right thing after all, and that “as selfish as Lina was capable of being, she could never have allowed her mother to look into the face of her son-in-law and see the face of her husband’s mistress.” He explains that he did not want to ruin her good relationship with her father by telling her. She now understands why he was so restless as a teenager, how Qiang felt like he didn’t belong in the Zhen family, and why he distanced himself from them and ultimately ran away. He did ask his father if it could be him that married Wei, but it was impossible because Qiang “was the debt,” and Lina was “the repayment.” But Lina is also angry because she realizes that Qiang had known this all along but still let her fall in love with him, and more than that, he let her wonder what happened for 22 years. He apologizes, admitting his cowardliness and his selfishness, and expresses his desire to make things right and be a brother to her and Wei. After Little Cao finally arrives with the Expo security to release them and take them home, Lina feels a sense of clarity. She decides to put her heart and efforts into her marriage, enroll Karen in school in China to raise her daughter to be a strong and independent woman, and encourage Wei to reconnect with his brother so they can be a family again.
Little Cao picks Sunny up to bring her to Lanson Suites the morning after their night on the town. He fills her in on finding Taitai and Qiang asleep in the pavilion, surrounded by empty glasses. Sunny nervously arrives at the Zhen’s apartment, assuming the worst, prepared to step in and take Karen to the movies if tensions were too high between the Zhen’s. Instead, she finds the family getting ready to swim. Lina gives Sunny a brand-new Nike bathing suit and invites her to join them. The Zhens seem happy and harmonious. At the pool, Sunny digs into the filter and finds Lina’s bracelet.
