Crazy Rich Asians

by Peter Chiarelli (screenplay by), Adele Lim (screenplay by), and Kevin Kwan (based on the novel "Crazy Rich Asians" by)

Color Force

Take a pile of pretty people, a GORGEOUS location, a fish out of water, a “you don’t know what you’re actually getting in to” love story based on a best selling book series, and you have Crazy Rich Asians.

This is the story of Rachel Chu and Nick Young, two attractive people in New York who fly to Singapore for Nick’s BFF’s wedding, where Rachel meets Nick’s family… and he never told her that his family was, as he says, “comfortable.”

By which he means, “they own most of Singapore.”

Not only are they extremely rich, and only have other extremely rich people in their circle, they expect that Nick’s intended will come from that circle. Though Nick’s closest friends accept Rachel for who she is, the rest of the family does not. Especially his mother. Rachel navigates this world she barely knew about with the help of her college roommate Peik Lin (whose family is also rich, but it’s New Money, while Nick’s family brought their money from China in the 1800s when Singapore was mostly a jungle).

The bulk of the plot is Rachel and Nick navigating these waters and each other, while working out the modern balance between filial devotion and responsibility to one’s self. It’s a romance, so there is a happy ending. But everyone needed to get there in their own time, including both Nick and Rachel’s mothers.

This cast is amazing. I love Michelle Yeoh, and she is perfect as the matriarch of this large, complicated family. Constance Wu is charismatic as FUCK. Rachel needs to be a balance of “fish out of water” and “fuck you, I’m a flying fish,” and Wu nails it.

Henry Golding as Nick is very very handsome and charming, and you can totally see why Rachel is mad about him, and it’s not just his abs. (His abs are great, though.)

Tan Kheng Hua as Kerry, Rachel’s mother, is just fantastic. She gets a lot of good meaty material to work with. Also fantastic: Awkwafina as Rachel’s best friend, and Gemma Chan as Nick’s cousin. (Gemma Chan is in a bunch of upcoming things, including Captain Marvel and I’m VERY excited about it. I liked her a lot.)

Nick’s mother’s main objection to Rachel as a partner for Nick is that she doesn’t think Rachel understands what being a partner to a man in this world requires. And to be fair, Rachel never thought about it, because it never occurred to her that she had to. The push and pull between duty and family and personal desires is the whole central conflict.

The biggest issue with Nick and his whole…you know, thing, was that he never told Rachel about his family. He did not expect this meeting to be as fraught as it was, when literally anyone could have told him. And when he’s talking with his best friend about proposing, and his best friend is like, “Dude, how are you gonna make this work?” and Nick just shrugs and goes, “We will figure it out.” THAT IS WHAT COMMUNICATION IS FOR. She didn’t know that this life was in the cards! Marriage would make it even more complicated! What about her career? What about yours? Where are you going to live? How are you going to help her deal with the fact that a bunch of the women in your circle hate her? This is the kind of thing that being open and honest and yes, over-processing and over-communicating is for! This is why you should TALK about marriage before the proposal!  HONESTLY, NICHOLAS.

And yeah, there’s been a lot of discussion around “this is the Asian Black Panther” and the importance of supporting representation with your dollars, but there’s also something to be said about letting something exist as simply what it is. This is a very fun romantic comedy, with all the tropes a rom com requires: pretty people, gorgeous locations, big misunderstandings, charismatic leads, hopefully some solid friendships for both people in the couple, ideally a makeover montage…it’s got everything but “groveling via song.” It also has the weaknesses we tend to see from rom coms: it’s a very narrow slice of Singaporean society. Just as NYC isn’t entirely rich white people, Singapore isn’t entirely rich ethnically Chinese people.

I really loved this movie because it was exactly what it set out to be: a rom com with partners who seem mismatched, but really are perfect for each other. For me, this film gets full marks for being the platonic ideal of a rom com: pretty leads, fantastic location, complications and misunderstandings, some groveling, and reunification. I understood where both Nick and Rachel were coming from (emotionally, I mean. I’d like to understand having that much money). I wanted them to work their shit out and have a big damn kiss at the end.  I wanted an excellent rom com, and that’s what I got.

But also, I have to say, I saw this in an early screening, and there was clearly a lot of joy to see a mainstream Hollywood movie that was about and starring Asian people – the first one since The Joy Luck Club, and that was 25 years ago. As an opportunity for a lot of superb Asian actors to get a mainstream release, this is excellent.

But more specifically, if this film is heralding a mainstream romcom-issance, EVERYONE WINS. If we get more rom coms like this one, I’m going to be a very, very happy moviegoer.