The Farewell
/“I know it was hard. It was hard for us too.”
Filmology Rating: 3.25 out of 4
The Farewell is based on a true lie- written and directed by Lulu Wang who largely bases this film on her own family's experience.
Essentially, a Chinese family discovers their grandmother has only a short while left to live and decide to keep her in the dark of her own condition by scheduling a wedding as an excuse to gather the whole family before she dies.
Here me out, this is very similar to a zombie movie in that this entire film is about a group of people, in this case a family, arguing over culture norms, moral, and ideals. And the entire film is just that; this family arguing amongst themselves over whether or not their grandmother should know of her deadly condition because, in China, it's tradition that a family hides deadly medical information from one another. This is because they believe that the stress of knowing you're about to die is the thing that kills you, not the disease or condition itself. So there is this terrific clash of opinion and what they should do about their elderly grandmother, Nai Nai. Hence the tagline of the film, "This film was based on a true lie." Awkwafina plays as Billi. She is the character you follow through this family drama. And her motivation for wanting to tell Nai Nai about her condition is from a loving place. Billi is from America, and obviously, in America, you can't hide medical information like they do in this film. So Billi comes from this very western perspective and there is a great commentary on that east/west ideology of the world.
This family is also well-sketched in that no family member feels one-dimensional and every member of this quirky little family feel like real people. The thing this film also brings up is how rare families get together nowadays as a whole and the drama that can come from such event. It leads to much drama and comedy.
However, the comedy itself feels too quirky at times. That very indy sense of comedy felt over-stretched near the end at this facade of a wedding. There is definitely a good ten minutes to trim from this film.
Otherwise, this is a terrific family drama that has something to say and does not shy from emotion- something lacking from film today.
Rating: See It
-Nolan