The Farewell 2019
I didn’t know much about this movie except that it starred Awkwafina and got incredibly high critical ratings, with a 98% at Rotten Tomatoes and an 89 at Metacritic.I bought it on sale based on that reputation. Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of times when critics rave that much there is something wrong with the movie. In this case there isn’t anything wrong with the movie, it is just overrated. The story is based on something similar that happened to writer/director Lulu Wang, where a cancer diagnosis was hidden from her grandmother by her family because they felt it was better that she not worry that she only had 3 months to live. The family all wanted to see their matriarch so they pretended one of her grandchildren was getting married so everyone could get together. A modern family, they are spread all over the place, so they return to China from the US and Japan to get together. It is a crazy but true setup and so the movie is funny, but also heartwarming because the family is doing this out of love, but also depressing, because this woman is going to die and doesn’t know (questionable, since this is a fairly common practice apparently). I like that the family that now lives in America points out that in America, this would be flat out illegal. It isn’t a huge family, so you get to know most of them and it is kind of fun as they try to hide reality and pretend they are all happy about a marriage that the groom (and his Japanese “bride") can’t be too happy about. I think maybe women will like this, but for me it seemed maybe a little too realistic and something that everyone deals with in their life. It is nice to see this family and how they get along despite their flaws, but isn’t that every family? Awkwafina does a good job in a serious role, never really getting to have fun, but has a couple of cute scenes. Her father, played by Tzi Ma (who was also Mulan’s father, plus a lot of other roles) is able to be incredibly expressive even without saying much. The entire cast is kind of like that actually, mostly stoic, but with underlying emotion. The dialog is a mixture of English and Chinese, so there are a lot of subtitles, which sometimes doesn’t work that well in a big group because you don’t know who is saying what line. This is a good movie, but not really earth shattering, frequently sentimental.
Written: 23 Feb 2021
Owned on: Blu-ray, Digital