A heartfelt, quiet movie that will certainly leave an emotional impact on you.
While this movie is not completely a true story, it based off director-writer Lulu Wang's true life. That is why this movie feels so real. Billi (Awkwafina) is a young Chinese-American woman struggling to make a living in New York. Though she never sees her grandma (Shuzhen Zhou) anymore, they still keep in touch over the phone and have a real connection with each other. However when her grandmother is diagnosed with lung cancer, the family in China decide not to tell her about it, so the woman can live her final months in bliss. This is difficult for Billi, who does not agree in the slightest, but when the whole family comes to China for her cousin's (Han Chen) wedding she hides her emotions. With this story the drama is constantly present. Wang realizes this and instead of going into forced melodrama, the film focuses on the little moments with the family. Since the drama is already there, these little moments don't have to do anything big to capture your attention and because of this it is these quiet and small moments that have the largest emotional impact. This movie perfectly captures a family getting together after a long time, especially one that comes from completely different cultures. Each member of the family is not only a well defined character, but their relationships with each other are perfectly well defined. Life is not just a depressing dirge and even in our saddest times, there are moments of humor and lightness. This movie captures that incredibly. There are quite a few light moments that definitely put a smile on my face. Nai-Nai (what the grandma is affectionately called) "fixing" the wedding photo, her and Billi practicing mediation outside and talk about giving the dead grandfather a cigarette are among these moments. Taking a true slice of life approach, this movie never preaches or tells us how to feel (a choice that makes the film all the more real).
Making this movie all the more powerful are the master performances from the whole cast and especially Awkwafina and Shuzhen Zhou. I can't see anyone after watching this movie not taking Awkwafina seriously as a dramatic actress. She plays every emotion perfectly and with incredible subtlety.
This is certainly a must see movie. It is often quiet and subtle but never lets go of your heartstrings.
-Michael J. Ruhland
No comments:
Post a Comment