A Chinese family discovers their grandmother has only a short while left to live and decide to keep her in the dark, scheduling a wedding to gather before she dies.
“The Farewell” has been gaining serious buzz ever since its premiere at Sundance earlier this year. The buzz mixed with the A24 banner before it only made me more excited for this film. I am here to tell you “The Farewell” is the best movie of the year, so far.
Awkwafina plays Billi, a Chinese born woman who immigrated with her parents (Tzi Ma and Diana Lin) when she was six years old and has fully grown in Western culture. When the news breaks that her grandmother is dying, the whole family goes to China under the guise they are there for a wedding to give their farewell. First things first, there is no performance in this that is not pitch perfect. Awkwafina genuinely impresses me and carries this film all the way through. The supporting cast of family members (notably Shuzhen Zhao who plays Nai Nai, Billi’s grandmother) never take a bad step throughout the whole runtime. The screenplay, written by director Lulu Wang, is the most impressive I’ve seen this year. “The Farewell” is not short of laughs and had me and the audience hollering for long periods of time. Mixed in with the laughs are many dramatic moments that just as, if not more, impressive as the humorous moments. There is an amazing underlying theme of the differences between Eastern and Western culture that makes cases for both without compromising either side. By the end of the film, I honestly got emotional and that’s all thanks to the story and performances. Great execution with the difficulty of most of this movie being in Chinese.
Director Lulu Wang has a new fan in me after this wonderful effort. The way Wang tells the story is human to a tee and for most of the film, I forgot that this was a narrative and not a real event. Getting all those actors and actresses to produce splendid performances, sometimes comedic and others dramatic, is not short of masterful and I have to applaud her for that. The cinematography is so simple but yet elegant. There are rarely camera movements and multiple camera cuts. Instead, we get long takes that give this natural sense of putting the audience directly into the moments with these characters. The music in the film is a great sidekick and never finds its way overshadowing the events on the screen but elevating them. Lulu Wang is honestly a director I am looking forward to here on out.
If I haven’t made it apparent enough, please go support this film. A heartfelt, comedic and emotional story that will have you calling your loved ones after. Awkwafina and co. deliver remarkable performances and Lulu Wang steals the show from the director’s chair. “The Farewell” is the movie to see right now.
“The Farewell” recently premiered at the 2019 Oak Cliff Film Festival
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