Real estate agent Mei Zhu (Liu Wie Wie) is horrified to learn that her five-year-old daughter Hehe (Zhang Chuqian) has been diagnosed with leukemia. Her affable second husband Lao Xie who enjoyed raising Hehe as his own, is equally dismayed, as is Hehe's biological father Xiao Lu (Zhang Jiayi), a busy construction manager.
After failed efforts to mitigate the situation with chemotherapy, the doctors say that a bone marrow transplant from a matching donor might work, but neither Mei Zhu nor Xiao Lu is a match. But what if they had another baby together? While doing so would make empirical sense, Lao Xie, who has yet to become a father, can't help but feel put out, and Xiao Lu's new wife Dong Fan (Yu Nan) is absolutely livid. He's been stalling her for years, telling her they're both too busy to raise a child. But now he has time to impregnate his ex-wife? No way.
A needlessly long series of conversations, ultimatums, discussions, changes of heart, and bargains ensues as the two couples try to puzzle out the best path to take, not only for the dying Hehe but also for themselves and their fragile relationships. The overall question becomes whether the stressed mother Mei Zhu is simply asking too much of everyone around her, letting her justifiably fierce love for her daughter blind her to the potential damage she is doing to everyone around her. If this were a novel, it would make for a good book club discussion.
What's intriguing to note is that as China watchers sometimes point out, China's famous one-child rule doesn't seem to apply to these urban strivers. The doctors discuss other families with two or more children; we see one such family; and Mei Zhu never mentions that having another child might run her afoul of the law. One senses that things might be very different out in the boondocks, where it's been reported that village party leaders strictly enforce the rules, even to the point of forcing abortions. With excellent health care available and the freedom to plan their families the way they want, these Beijingers are actually lucky. They have the same kinds of options that Americans in the same situation would have. Funny, though -- that makes In Love We Trust less interesting than it might otherwise be.
Aka Zuo you.
Who is this Ed McMahon?
