Movie Reaction: The Farewell

Formula: The Joy Luck Club - Crazy Rich Asians

(I just decided to lean into the lazy formula. Sorry)

The Farewell is a tricky movie to talk about. There isn't a lot to it really, and I don't mean that as a bad thing. It's about Billi (Awkwafina), an Americanized Chinese woman (she moved to the US when she was 6), who returns with her family to China to see her grandmother. They just found out her grandma, who they call Nai Nai, has late stage lung cancer and doesn't have long to live. According to Chinese custom, they hide this fact from Nai Nai and concoct a cousin's wedding as an excuse to visit her. Not a lot happens in the movie. It's mainly a movie about characters arguing Eastern culture vs. Western culture and contemplating life without Nai Nai.

That make it sound like more of a slog than it is. Awkwafina is a naturally charismatic performer. She mostly (and impressively) tones that down for the movie, but she lets it out just enough at times. Shuzhen Zhao, who plays Nai Nai, is basically the grandma everyone wishes they had. She's spirited, not too set in her ways, and deeply interested in the well-being of those she loves. At first, I was worried that the movie introduced too many family members for such a relatively short movie (1h40m), but writer/director Lulu Wang, who based this all on her own life, efficiently shades in all the characters so they all felt real by the end.

I was surprised by how much this wasn't a tear-jerker. I mean, it will break some people still, but it mostly avoids melodramatics. It's the simple moments that are the most powerful. The movie would rather sit with you for the rest of the say than break you down in the theater.

The only problem I had with the movie was that Wang's direction kept getting in the way. There were a lot of slow motion shots and big establishing shots that called attention to themselves. It was very distracting in an otherwise small and personal movie. I'm not sure why she decided to include so many of them.

As I mentioned, I'm struggling to find much to say about The Farewell. It's a good movie. I liked the performances and the small scale. I wish there was something about it that I'd rate at an A+ level, because that would raise my excitement about it. In the end though, it's a movie about showing restraint, so it only make sense that my response would be similar.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend