Sexual and cultural identities collide in Ray Yeung’s predictable-but-occasionally-endearing romantic comedy “Front Cover.” Ryan (Jake Choi) is an openly gay stylist living in New York, pushing to get assigned to work on high-profile magazine cover shoots — gigs he keeps coming close to landing only to have them snatched away, possibly due to his Chinese-American heritage. After losing out on yet another cover job, Ryan is given a far less glamorous task: he has to help style Chinese movie star Ning (James Chen) for his big debut American photoshoot. Ning specifically requests a Chinese stylist, which instantly presents a problem: while Ryan is Chinese, he has no interest in his heritage — when he goes to meet Ning for the first time in Chinatown he acts as if he’s arrived on an alien planet. Ryan’s lack of enthusiasm for his roots isn’t the only problem. Ning is homophobic and is particularly aghast at Ryan being open and proud, and living what Ning considers an “abnormal” lifestyle.
This bumpy partnership takes a sudden turn during the photoshoot, when the photographer and his assistant are openly racist towards the two men. Ryan and Ning blow off the photoshoot, begin to grow closer in the process, and you can probably guess where this is going — down the same, well-trodden path that most romantic comedies travel. First they hate each other! Then they love each other! What a wacky love story! What makes “Front Cover” a cut above your traditional cookie-cutter rom-com lies in writer-director Yeung’s approach to the material.
When “Front Cover” isn’t succumbing to sappy, slow piano music to underscore its emotions, or having its characters deliver flat bits of dialogue, it finds a nice, honest rhythm to settle into. The quieter moments between Ryan and Ning as their relationship deepens are what work best, aided by Eun-ah Lee’s warm cinematography. A sequence where Ning travels with Ryan and his parents (Elizabeth Sung and Ming Lee) is initially set-up to turn into a comedy of errors, but evolves into a sweetly emotional moment between Ryan’s mother and Ning. However, sequences like these are unfortunately few and far between, but when they arrive they hint at a far more graceful film.
Choi and Chen have an easy-going chemistry that ebbs and flows as the film progresses. These characters are falling for each other, yes, but the relationship isn’t presented as a romance to end all romances — they barely know each other, after all. Things get even more complicated, albeit in a cliched sitcom-ish manner, when Ning’s girlfriend (Li Jun Li) arrives almost immediately after the two have slept together. From here “Front Cover” unfolds predictably enough, though Yeung and his actors handle it all in a well-constructed, bittersweet manner. As a filmmaker, Yeung has a keen eye for the quiet spaces where two people can learn more about each other than if they were holding a wordy conversation. If the director could just find a way to balance against his ho-hum dialogue and plotting, “Front Cover” would make more of an impression, instead of being the sweet but ultimately forgettable film that it is. [B-]
