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Since China opened their doors to foreign adoption in 1992, more than 70,000 children have been adopted to American parents.
"Wo Ai Ni Mommy" is the story of one.
This incredibly exhaustive documentary chronicles the journey of one 8-year-old girl adopted to a Long Island family, covering the first 18 months of her new life. It's a harrowing, sad, joyous, frightening, exhilarating and occasionally hilarious portrait of two very different cultures combining in a single family.
Director Stephanie Wang-Breal enjoyed incredible access to the Sadowsky clan, following them every step of the way as they traveled to Guangzhou City to meet Sui Yong for the first time, to her first tenuous weeks in the U.S., and in the months thereafter.
It's a fly-on-the-wall view as they tenderly begin to bond, then clash, and finally the girl -- redubbed Faith by her new family -- turns into a vibrant kid who identifies as an American who just happened to come from China.
Wang-Breal's camera does not hesitate to capture and depict moments of heartbreak. There's Sui Yong's terrified first meeting with her new mother Donna, whom she is cajoled by the Chinese adoption authorities to address as Mommy and speak the words, "Wo Ai Ni, Mommy" -- "I love you, Mommy" -- to a woman she has just met.
Her first few weeks are daunting. Since she speaks no English, Faith is incredibly isolated and lonely. In fact, at one point they discuss whether having the filmmaker present is serving as a crutch, since she falls into the role of translator.
I don't know a parent, of adopted or biological children, who won't feel their heart tear as the little girl bawls that she wants to go back to China and see her beloved foster sister again.
The Sadowskys, Donna and Jeff, are loving but imperfect parents. It's the classic good-cop-bad-cop routine, where mother is forced to act as disciplinarian while dad comes off as the loving rescuer. Complicating things are the presence of another adopted daughter from China, Dara, who is 3 years old and grew up in the States speaking English, and had no similar adjustment period to overcome.
They belong to a group, Families with Children from China, who help these adoptees maintain their cultural and linguistic ties. But as time goes on and Faith grows closer to her new home and family, she begins to forget Cantonese and Mandarin.
There's a wrenching moment where Faith speaks to her old foster family via video chat, and the sister with whom she was once closer than twins cannot communicate with her because of this new language barrier. Although it's a normal process, the divide between them is permanent, and growing.
Experts, psychologists, teachers and others appear to speak about the tremendous rift it can cause when someone is plopped from one end of the globe to another. As she turns into a precocious, occasionally petulant 10-year-old, Faith best explains her initial feelings better than anyone with a PhD could:
"In China I didn't know why they adopted me and why they loved me and why they knew me. Because I didn't know them."
Although this outstanding documentary isn't a broader look at the adoption phenomenon, we do get to glimpse into some controversy through the microcosm of this single family unit.
For example, there's a shocking scene where Donna Sadowsky sits in her hotel room counting out a large pile of $100 bills for the adoption "fee." She expresses no qualms about the payment, since the amount is no burden to an affluent Long Island family and helps support the other children. Still, the suggestion of foreigners buying their way into adoption is there.
Faith/Sui Yong also has some medical issues that perhaps got her identified as more suitable for foreign adoption. In one chilling scene, her Chinese foster father says she would have had a very hard time finding a job or social acceptance there because she is "deformed." (Her problems are actually so mild as to be hardly noticeable.)
"Wo Ai Ni Mommy" is a big story seen from one small angle. Still, through this powerful and affecting prism we glimpse an international exchange that brings both love, and many challenges.
4.5 Yaps