website's critical consensus reads, "A promising work by Lin, the energetic Better Luck Tomorrow is disturbing and thought-provoking." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 67 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote "Lin is a talent to watch. There's a sting to this film that gets to you." Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a full four-star-rating and wrote that it was a "disturbing and skillfully-told parable about growing up in today's America" and that Lin "reveals himself as a skilled and sure director." In 2018, Jane Yong Kim of The Atlantic wrote the film "[complicates] the question of Asian American representation in Hollywood in ways that still resonate deeply today." Release Better Luck Tomorrow opened on 13 screens on April 11, 2003, earning the highest per-screen average of any in film release at the time. Much of the film’s success was attributed to grassroots campaigning by young Asian-American viewers, particularly of university age, who promoted the film on school campuses and online. Awards and film festivals Official Selection and Grand Jury Prize Nomination – Sundance Film Festival, 2002. In a question and answer session following a festival screening, in response to an audience member who asked director Lin if he thought it was irresponsible to portray Asian-Americans in such a negative light, Roger Ebert stood up and said, angrily, "What I find very offensive and condescending about your statement is nobody would say to a bunch of white filmmakers, 'How could you do this to your people?'". And then he continued: "This film has the right to be about these people, and Asian-Americans have the right to be whatever the hell they want to be. They do not have to 'represent' their people." Ebert's approval of the film drew the attention of major studios, leading eventually to MTV's buying the film for distribution. Official Selection – Toronto International Film Festival, 2002. Lin said reception at the Toronto festival was notably different than Sundance with the audience more interested in discussing the state of youth rather than the race of the ethnicity of the actors. “In America, most of the time, I can’t even get into talking about the issues, because they’re just stuck on race," he said. Independent Spirit Awards – John Cassavetes Award Nomination, 2004 See also Model minority References Further