Warner Bros. Pictures
There’s a kind of fiction that’s referred to as aspirational, the sort of world that has surface level problems and more positives than those negatives. Sometimes this is following the kings and queens of politics or business or fashion, getting invested in power and beauty and enough personal demons to still feel superior. But the best way perhaps to appeal to me is use the standby of the audience surrogate.
Crazy Rich Asians comes from director John M Chu (mainly known for the Step Up movies and the Jem and the Holograms movie) and screenwriters Adele Lim and Peter Chiarelli adapting the novel of the same name by Kevin Kwan. I haven’t read it. In this story, we follow Rachel Chu (the effortlessly talented Constance Wu) and her boyfriend Nick Young (Henry Golding).
At first, we only know Rachel is a talented professor of economics at NYU and that Nick has a mysterious background of super-wealth and fame in Singapore. When Nick’s old best friend Colin (Chris Pang) is getting married to fiance Araminta (Sonoya Mizuno), Nick decides to ask Rachel along as they’ve been dating for over a year. But Rachel had no idea that Nick’s family are the richest family in Singapore, with an eclectic family and a lot of baggage.
Nick is reticent to explain all of the problems facing Rachel, like his own pressures to take over the family business, the various ex-girlfriends trying to destroy Rachel, or the disapproval from his mother Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh). Rachel is intimidated by the collected and highly poised Eleanor, who doesn’t bother to hide her clear belief that Rachel can’t handle any of it, and Nick spends a lot of time off with Colin leaving Rachel to her own devices much of the time.
Rachel does have some support in the form of Goh Peik Lin (Awkwafina), her college friend and nouveau riche resident of Singapore. Goh Peik Lin is completely willing to gawk at the overly gaudy nature of Nick’s life, letting Rachel be the steady and normal one. The story primarily follows Rachel and her attempts to decide if she wants to stay in Nick’s life and try to fight against all the pressure against her, classism and the ‘you aren’t the right sort of Chinese’ since she was born and raised in the US.
There are a few other side characters that show up, almost entirely all humorous and recognizable Asian character actors, some more caricaturish and some a bit more interesting. But there’s also Astrid (the unreasonably beautiful Gemma Chan known from the highly underrated HUMANS), Nick’s cousin, the model-philanthropist who has personal drama that’s so dramatic and emotional, it feels a bit out of place. In the book, it may be a bit different, but despite Gemma Chan’s effortless emotional depth, it did feel a bit tonally dissonant.
Constance Wu is as great as I expected as Rachel, playing the ‘normal’ character with every bit of the depth that was clear from the beginning — she’s killer at talking without speech through her facial expressions and she has a real gift for comedic timing (as on Fresh Off the Boat). Michelle Yeoh is superb as the matriarch with more going on than the cliché you first expect, and the side characters are a lot of fun — Awkwafina is a fun standout. Some of the accents are … iffy, and some jokes a bit flat, but the movie tends to work better in those comedic moments, and in the moments where Rachel has a path she forges for herself. Henry Golding is perfectly fine as the handsome decent dude, although he doesn’t have too much to do. Which really, in the end, is fine.
As instead of the classic rom-com situation where you know it’s about the dude having to make a big show of love demonstration, instead it’s far more subtle, introducing history, tradition, and family as themes. The movie carefully does not discuss China or Taiwan in any way but the most neutral, toothless way. But again, it’s not that sort of movie.
For a movie called ‘Crazy’ Rich Asians, it wasn’t really that crazy, although the other two words are true. This is a movie where all speaking roles are Asian, and most are also Chinese in some way. There’s enough of this world that there could be something there for a follow-up, but it fits well even when it doesn’t. This is the romance/dramedy you deserve to see.
A few notes on the score and soundtrack. The score comes from composer Brian Tyler, and although much is standard drama/comedy fare, there is also an overall jazzy theme that fits well with much of the party world feel, without delving into clichéd Chinese musical themes. Contrasting this is the delightful soundtrack, which features some old classic Chinese songs covering the 50s to the 80s, a few original jazzy pieces by Jasmine Chen and some great covers, including one by Katherine Ho of Coldplay’s ‘Yellow’ that was beautifully haunting, and a super energetic cover/remix of ‘Material Girl’ by Sally Yeh.
Crazy Rich Asians has a run time of 2 hours 1 minute and is rated PG-13 for some suggestive content and language.
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