Summary
Billi, a Chinese immigrant raised in New York, returns home with her family to visit Nai Nai, her grandmother who has terminal cancer but, for cultural reasons, hasn’t been told about her diagnosis by their extended Chinese family.
The Film
“The Farewell” is in the running for my top film of 2019. It seems crazy to me that I am writing those words, considering that “The Lighthouse,” “Parasite,” and “Midsommar” all released this year but here we are, living in a strange reality where a PG rated movie rivals the R-rated high-concept pack. I can’t honestly say that I saw this one coming.
“The Farewell” is a rare find because while it is a small story with only a few characters that feels monumental and important. It succeeds in waking the heart from a slumber it doesn't even know it is held within and raising it to embrace those we do not understand or necessarily agree with and learn something completely unexpected yet incredibly real and familiar.
From the outset, most people who see this film will be drawn in by the premise. In China, apparently, they do not always inform their elderly when they have a terminal disease in order to help maintain the ill persons quality of life and peace of mind for as long as is possible. They go so far as to actively hide the fact of their disease from them, and in this film, since her family live all over the world, Nai Nai’s family decides to hold a fake wedding ceremony in order to allow them all to return to China and visit with her without raising suspicion.
At first, in “The Farewell,” the only one who has a problem with this is Billie (Awkwafina, “Ocean’s 8”) since she was raised in America for the most part and thus has the least amount of Chinese culture built into her way of doing things. She is appalled that they intend to lie to Nai Nai (Shuzhen Zhao) and most of her family actually leave for China without Billie since they suspect she will just spill the beans. Of course, it wouldn’t be much of a movie if she didn’t hop a plane and surprise them all by showing up and playing along, though begrudgingly.
There are a couple of things in this movie that I found especially delightful, on top of the cultural exploration aspect, which is really not that strong considering that the premise makes it sound like you may be finding out about “one-crazy-custom-after-another” (read in a ridiculous over the top voice). You really don’t.
Instead, you get a continually unfolding exploration of the various family members personal views on the situation and the opening of everyone’s eyes to understand each other better. I won’t spoil anything about the end except to say that I found it satisfying since the internal movements of characters is more the focus of the film than the external journey of whether or not they tell Nai Nai about her cancer. This exploration of people’s assumptions and revelation of hidden emotions and events which make up each character lead to wonderful realizations when people’s prejudices are brought up against the ways that they are wrong about what is actually going on.
On top of the deft way that this film navigates its themes are some really special performances. Awkwafina delivers a performance that straight up establishes her in my mind as an actor to watch. So much of the film turns on her relationship with Shuzhen Zhao that if their chemistry had been off, the whole movie would’ve lost its soul. What we actually get are complex internal emotions playing across her face like the slightest reflection of light in a rippled pool, barely perceptible, yet immediately recognizable not just by the eye, but by the heart as well.
The same could be said for Shuzhen Zhao who, though she knows in real life that her character has cancer, has to play it all as if she does not. Occasionally this leads to delightful humor but also heartache as we see someone speak with confidence that is unhindered by the truth yet does not feel tinged with a tragic subtle foreknowledge.
This is truly a remarkable film which I hope people will add to their queues because it really does deserve a watch. In a world dominated by mistrust, assumption, dissidence, and rancor, people need a truly heart-opening story to balance themselves out from the constant stream of “fighting” movies in today’s cinemas.
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