Directed by Shi-Zheng Chen

Timing is everything, and unfortunately Shi-Zheng Chen's Asian student-on-the-verge film Dark Matter had to be delayed to avoid a release so soon after the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre. The story follows Liu Xing (Ye Liu), a bright and eager cosmology graduate student from China who works tirelessly to impress his American university mentor, Jake Reiser (Aidan Quinn), but discovers unexpected obstacles to success. The film does an excellent job of capturing the ego of academia and dispelling the myth that Asian grad students only think in equations. An interesting thread in the story involves the friendship between Liu Xing and Joanna Silver (Meryl Streep), an affluent - and bored - housewife who devotes her time to tal chi and planning welcome activities for new Chinese students. Even while practicing Chinese pronunciation in a tunic, Streep never turns Joanna into a caricature. But the tone of Darfc Matter is uneven, at times quirky, sentimental and eventually somber. The lack of cohesiveness serves as a distraction from an otherwise solid effort by Chen and lead actor Liu.

- Sylvie Kim