Joan Chen has a resume stacked with lauded performances in the U.S. and China, yet scripts about women her age longing and yearning for love and sex rarely cross her desk.
That’s why her first conversation with writer-director Xiaodan He about “Montreal, My Beautiful” left such an impression.
The Canadian drama, out Friday, stars Chen as a middle-aged Chinese immigrant in Montreal who’s suppressed her sexuality for years. A wife, mother and provider, she has lived decades, as He puts it, “not as herself, but as someone who was just doing a duty her entire life.”
Then, one summer, she has an affair with a young Québécois woman, played by Charlotte Aubin, and glimpses a version of herself she’s long denied.
“Usually the parts that come to me — whether for a mother character or a professional — people don’t think about the desire and longing for romantic love, for sexual love at that age,” says Chen, 64, in an interview.
“They might even think of it as somehow distasteful.”
The Chinese-American actress broke out internationally with roles in 1987’s Oscar-sweeping “The Last Emperor” and David Lynch’s early ’90s series “Twin Peaks.” More recently, she’s taken nuanced, maternal turns in 2024 dramedy “Dìdi” and last year’s rom-com “The Wedding Banquet.”
Still, roles that position Chen as the central figure of her own desire have been almost non-existent.
“I’m still alive. I know you feel that at any age. I know I would feel it when I’m 90,” she says.
“Imagine myself feeling it for as long as I live, but people don’t portray that.”
He, however, is a director willing to go there.
Her 2017 debut, “A Touch of Spring,” is a semi-autobiographical drama about a Chinese immigrant in Montreal who returns to her homeland to confront her past and rebuild her life. For her sophomore feature, the Chinese-Canadian filmmaker wanted to stay entirely in Montreal, where she’s lived nearly 25 years.
But she was determined to avoid familiar immigrant narratives about economic hardship or cultural alienation. Instead, she found a fresh angle in “Montreal, My Beautiful” central character Feng Xia, a 53-year-old Chinese lesbian who has repressed her desires since youth.
“For me, turning 50 is quite a symbolic age for a woman, and for men too. It seems everything is gone. Nothing beautiful is possible anymore,” says He, who recently turned 50 herself.
“Some people stop dreaming, stop trying. This film, I think, can encourage them to.”
He describes “Montreal, My Beautiful” as the first feature film to centre a middle-aged Chinese lesbian on the big screen.
“(Because of) the cultural pressure, the social pressure, the traditional pressure, we cannot do this film back in China,” she says.
“Here, we have a chance to do it, and in a very beautiful way.”
Feng Xia’s awakening comes at a cost: the stability of her family and traditional expectations. But for Chen, that complexity was the point.
“The price of love is loss,” she says. “And the price of not loving is not living.”
He’s connection with Chen came from a mutual contact in Beijing, who immediately suggested the actress for the role.
“How come I didn’t think of that?” she recalls saying with a laugh.
Chen’s restrained yet resonant performance anchors the film, a feat made more impressive by the fact that she learned French from scratch to act in her character’s adopted tongue.
“I had zero foundation,” she says. “Not a single word.”
She began studying three months before filming, taking lessons several times a week and repeating her lines “many dozens of times a day” until they felt natural.
The film’s intimate scenes required a different kind of care. Chen says she understood from the outset that they were essential to portraying Feng Xia’s transformation.
“That moment of her body and soul expressing in harmony, it’s extremely important,” she says. “I had concerns because I didn’t know how it could be best presented. I didn’t want it to be vulgar. I didn’t want it to be clinical. I wanted it to be so natural.”
He frames Montreal’s fleeting, exuberant summer as a metaphor for Feng Xia’s late-in-life awakening.
“Feng Xia’s life is like a long winter and suddenly a beautiful summer arrives,” she says.
For Chen, who spent the shoot wandering through neighbourhoods and parks during long lunch breaks, the city left its mark.
“I felt that summer in Montreal,” she says. “It was absolutely enchanting.”
The feeling of blooming into one’s true self — even for a moment — is what Chen hopes audiences carry with them.
“I’m not a lesbian woman, but I do feel (Feng Xia) inside me. I have lived a public life since I was 14. Growing up, I always had to be that model they assigned me to play — to be proper and to dress in the most simple way,” she says.
“We all have experienced that our inner soul, our most private part, corresponds so little with how we appear outside. I understand that. That’s the essence of this character, who finally can be herself for once.
“I hope not only middle-aged women or lesbians relate to her,” Chen adds. “I hope it just feels very human.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 12, 2026.
Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press
