A24
Not everyone can relate to the immigrant experience directly, and not even everyone can relate the same way to the themes of family in popular culture. But for those who feel the weight of a family, for good and bad and all in between, it scarcely matters what country you’re from or which continent, for that matter. Universal themes hit most people for a reason.
The Farewell comes from relative newcomer Lulu Wang, who wrote and directed the movie, which is mostly in Chinese (subtitles provided naturally). In a film loosely based on events from her real life, the film follows Billi (Awkawfina), a young struggling writer in New York who came to the US as a child. Her parents, father Haiyan (the epic character actor Tzi Ma) and mother Jian (Diana Lin) aren’t the most emotionally supportive, but they certainly care about their daughter.
Billi’s strongest relationship is with her grandmother “Nai Nai” (Shuzhen Zhou), a common term for grandmother in China. Like ‘Calvin & Hobbes’, we only know Nai Nai by that name, because it is her relationship to everyone else that matters and it is only respectful to call her that. Nai Nai (who still lives in China) and Billi talk often on the phone, separated by an ocean and a generation, often telling each other little white lies to make the other one happy.
As Billi gets bad news about her writing fellowship and ponders disappointing her family, news comes from the family that her cousin Hao Hao (Han Chen), whose family has been living in Japan, is getting married. And the wedding is happening in only a few days back in China. Naturally Billi wants to go, but her parents are reticent about it. Soon we find out the true, awful reason: Nai Nai has been diagnosed with lung cancer and is said that she won’t last long.
So the wedding is an excuse for the close family to see Nai Nai, because they do not plan on telling her. This becomes a cultural thing, as Billi (and even her father) struggle with hiding the truth from Nai Nai. Still, despite Billi’s worries and sadness, she cannot help but be happy with her grandmother as they plan for the wedding.
Shuzhen Zhou as Nai Nai is wonderful, effervescent and joyful, bringing emotion to every moment she’s on screen. I could’ve watched hours more with her, I’m sure. Awkwafina made me angry, in an odd way, because she was phenomenal — it made me retroactively annoyed than I was already that Ocean’s Eight wasted her so completely. Her snarky rapper persona isn’t even remotely present, which is all the more impressive.
Lulu Wang recognizes the silent acting power here, and smartly gives us frequent shots of Billi thinking silently, pondering emotionally. The movie didn’t wreck me like Toy Story 4, but it certainly went down that emotional fraught road. Yet the movie doesn’t wallow in misery (like some I’ve seen lately), delighting in moments of joy and light despite the ever present fear.
The movie is essentially a series of vignettes as we build up to the wedding, filled with meaningful conversations about cultural differences and pride in one’s country. Naturally there is discussion about the responsibility of the family, towards it and from it, and it would all be empty except that we buy these people as a family, warts and all.
So far it’s one of my favorite movies of the year, and I think this one will stick with me for a while at least. Certainly among all the forgettable indie movies I’ve seen in the last few months, this one stands out among them all.
The Farewell has a run time of 1 hour 40 minute and is rated PG for thematic material, brief language and some smoking.
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