Movie Review: Crazy Rich Asians

Crazy Rich Asians *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Jon M. Chu.

Written by: Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim based on the book by Kevin Kwan.

Starring: Constance Wu (Rachel Chu), Henry Golding (Nick Young), Michelle Yeoh (Eleanor Young), Gemma Chan (Astrid Young Teo), Lisa Lu (Ah Ma), Awkwafina (Peik Lin Goh), Harry Shum Jr. (Charlie Wu), Ken Jeong (Wye Mun Goh), Sonoya Mizuno (Araminta Lee), Chris Pang (Colin Khoo), Jimmy O. Yang (Bernard Tai), Ronny Chieng (Eddie Cheng), Remy Hii (Alistair Cheng), Nico Santos (Oliver T'sien), Jing Lusi (Amanda Ling), Carmen Soo (Francesca), Pierre Png (Michael Teo), Fiona Xie (Kitty Pong), Victoria Loke (Fiona Cheng), Janice Koh (Felicity Young), Amy Cheng (Jacqueline Ling), Chieng Mun Koh (Neenah Goh), Calvin Wong (P.T. Goh), Kheng Hua Tan (Kerry Chu), Constance Lau (Celine), Selena Tan (Alix Young). 

 

I hope that the wild success of Crazy Rich Asians at the summer box office this year will not be a one-off – that it won’t be another 25 years before a Hollywood studio makes a film with an all Asian cast (the last one was The Joy Luck Club in 1993). Specifically, I hope that because the film itself is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of Asian American culture, something that happens so infrequently gets examined in American movies (or TV). The film itself is highly processed junk food – the good kind – and is really entertaining in its celebration of outsize excess and wealth. There is an undercurrent of something more real beneath that surface of course – but that surface is fun in its way too.

 

The story revolves around an Econ professor at NYU, Rachel Chu (Constance Wu), a first generation American citizen, born to a single Chinese mother (Khung Hua Tan (Kerry Chu). She has been dating Nick (Henry Golding) for a year now in New York, and is finally going to travel to Singapore to meet his family. What she doesn’t know is that Nick is the heir to an immense real estate fortune – and is expected to take over the family business. His arrival with an” outsider” will not be looked upon kindly. Indeed, when she meets Nick’s mother, Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh), you can sense the coldness coming from Eleanor’s stare. Rachel has now been thrown into a world she doesn’t understand – two, in fact, Singapore in general, and the ultra-rich as well, and kind of has to figure it out on her own. Luckily, she has a college friend, Peik Lin Goh (Awkafina) from the area – her family is rich, but it’s new money, not like the Young’s. Awkafina’s performance is essentially comic relief – and it’s probably the best in the film, since her every line lands.

 

Crazy Rich Asians is a very broad film in many ways – the humor especially, but also just in terms of its style. This film is an unironic celebration of the ultra-rich in a way that can be off-putting at times. But, the film is smart enough to show us the various ways the women in the film use that wealth as a show of independence – the opening scene with Yeoh as a flashback to Nick’s childhood for example, or how Nick’s cousin, Astrid (Gemma Chan) deals with her husband – who, like Rachel, also does not come from money, but unlike Rachel, cares greatly about that. I also liked how this is a romantic comedy, and yet it doesn’t make its female heroine into a mess like so many do. Rachel is smart and independent – she isn’t unfazed by Nick’s wealth, but doesn’t love him for it either. No matter what happens, Rachel will be fine – and she knows it. That doesn’t mean she’s going to let them get the best of her.

 

The film is stuffed to the gills – probably too stuffed to be properly contained in a two-hour movie, but it’s all good stuff – or at least entertaining stuff. And it is culturally specific in many ways that I appreciated. It’s about time we’ve seen some of this on the big screen.

 

In a perfect world, Crazy Rich Asians would be just one of many films about Asians Americans – to go along with many others about Latino Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, etc. In many ways, the expectations for this film – the pressure on it to live up to everyone’s expectations, to have an entire community’s hopes resting on it are too big for any movie to bare. Crazy Rich Asians is not a great movie – but the fact it was able to accomplish what it does is perhaps an ever rarer achievement than a great movie.