Crazy Rich Asians (2018, Dir. Jon M. Chu):
As the car rounded one last curve, Rachel suddenly let out a gasp, grabbing Peik Lin’s arm. In the distance, a great house had come into view, ablaze with lights. As they got closer, the enormity of the place truly became evident. It wasn’t a house. It was more like a palace. The front driveway was lined with cars, almost all of which were large and European—Mercedes, Jaguars, Citroëns, Rolls-Royces, many with diplomatic medallions and flags. A cluster of chauffeurs loitered in a circle behind the cars, smoking. Waiting by the massive front doors in a white linen shirt and tan slacks, hair perfectly tousled and hands pensively shoved into his pockets, stood Nick.
“I feel like I’m dreaming. This can’t be real,” Peik Lin said.
“Oh Peik Lin, who are these people?” Rachel asked nervously.
For the first time in her life, Peik Lin was at a loss for words. She stared at Rachel with a sudden intensity, and then she said, almost in a whisper, “I have no idea who these people are. But I can tell you one thing—these people are richer than God.”
— Kevin Kwan, Crazy Rich Asians
Every quarter century or so, Hollywood rouses from its slumber and realizes there’s an Asian-American market out there. Some may remember Flower Drum Song (1961), a musical which still maintains its kick nearly six decades later. And of course there’s the film version of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club (1993), which launched a respectable run of tearjerker immigrant literature but failed to kickstart a similar trend in cinema. In between big studio pictures like these, you’ll occasionally stumble upon an oddball cult classic such as Chan Is Missing (1982), a sneakily radical surprise like Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (2004), or an indie flick that spawns lasting Asian-Am directorial and acting talent like Better Luck Tomorrow (2002). Otherwise, the Asian presence in mainstream American film has typically fallen under the usual stereotypes — martial arts badass, gangster, restaurant owner, exotic femme fatale, honor student, dork — or resulted in yellow actors playing characters devoid of any cultural or ethnic context. No surprise then, that seeing the new movie Crazy Rich Asians has become something of a social movement, as Asians thirsting for any sort of positive, multidimensional representation of themselves have already flocked to the film like an oasis in the desert.
Kevin Kwan’s novel Crazy Rich Asians and its sequels don’t necessarily shy away from stereotype, but they’re frothy, entertaining romps that revel in their cultural roots. Recognizing that nothing succeeds like excess (and the universal appeal of a rom-com), Kwan is happy to name-drop name-brand luxuries and race his characters through dizzying plot turns. The result is a canny riff on madcap farces, gussied up with modern Asian consumerism and classism. The cinematic version of Crazy Rich Asians picks up on this cheeky vibe at the outset, opening with two musical whoppers: a swing version of vintage songstress Teresa Teng’s “When Will You Return,” followed by a brassy Mando-pop take on “Money (That’s What I Want)”. The message is clear: Asians can have fun with classic tropes too.
Indeed, the setup of Crazy Rich Asians harkens back to golden-age Hollywood comedy. Plucky heroine Rachel (Constance Wu) is your average, middle-class, hard-working second-generation American who can still claim a connection with her origins (“I’m so Chinese, I’m an economics professor with lactose intolerance,” she jokes). Smitten with her hunky boyfriend Nick Young (Henry Golding), she has no clue about his background — until Nick whisks her back to his hometown of Singapore for his best bud’s wedding and exposes her to his family, who turns out to be, well, crazy and rich (and crazy rich). When his relations and social connections aren’t holding swishy soirees at their gargantuan estates, they’re getting whisked off to exotic isles for shopping sprees, or flashing their couture at passing paparazzi. Nick’s family regard Rachel as a commoner, interloper, and gold-digger, and leading the pack against her is Nick’s disapproving, protective mother Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh), who knows a thing or two about modest beginnings, and what it takes to survive high society. Thus the table is set: Can Rachel survive the lifestyles of the rich and famous, keep her man, and beat these princesses and princelings at their own game?
By necessity, the script by Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim sacrifices much of the book’s scope, and a lot of the local Singapore flavor in the process. The writers know it, too: “The book is always better,” a character remarks during a particularly meta moment. Nor are they (or Kwan) too interested in the plot’s social implications, preferring to state themes instead of developing them. (“All Americans think about is their own happiness,” says Eleanor, and while the film doesn’t quite agree with the sentiment, it doesn’t illustrate it, either.) Still, the screenplay preserves the story’s main thrust while throwing in a few neat curveballs. A subplot with Nick’s sweet-tempered cousin Astrid (Gemma Chan) and her unfaithful husband contains less surprises than the book and is often at a remove from the main narrative, but concludes on a note of female self-empowerment more satisfying than what the literary version provides. Another twist finds Rachel bonding with Nick’s ex-girlfriend (Jing Lusi), which leads to a rude awakening and a bracing display of bitchery. The Singapore locations have plenty of polish — the city has probably never looked better on film — and Bourdain-worthy passages set in hawker centres will likely set your mouth watering. Most of all, Crazy Rich Asians captures the knottiness of familial relations, where every conversation becomes a game of joust-and-parry, and meeting the parents is akin to the world’s toughest job interview. In the quietest, most cutting scene, Rachel is confronted by Eleanor in the Youngs’ manor, outflanked by all the ancestral trappings of wealth, as Eleanor declares in her most genteel tone, “You will never be enough.”
Rachel Chu: So your family is rich?
Nick Young: We’re comfortable.
Rachel Chu: That is exactly what a super rich person would say.
Anyone familiar with rom-com mechanics can guess where this all goes. Nonetheless, it’s exhilarating to see an all-Asian cast get to strut their stuff in a major movie, over a wide spectrum of leading and supporting roles. (In a sly turnabout, the only Caucasians in the movie are beauty queens that are paraded on the screen for a few seconds, like ornamental minority walk-ons in a typical Hollywood production.) The best stuff is reserved for the comedy players who dance around the edges of the narrative. Though New York rapper Nora Lum (aka Awkwafina) is about as far from an accurate representation of a Singapore rich kid as one can get, she energizes every scene she’s in with her knob-kneed gawkiness. As her dad, Ken Jeong is equally out of place, but he gets one of the movie’s best zingers as he forces food on his pampered kids at dinner: “Think of all the starving children in America!” Meanwhile, Nico Santos hams it up just enough as Rachel’s sassy gay buddy Oliver, skirting over cliché. On the other end of the scale, Golding underplays it as Nick; his character may be a blank, but he’s a puppy-ish, appealing blank. Yeoh towers over the ensemble, regal and in command, yet with a hint of uneasiness in her eyes, hyper-aware of her prescribed role of matriarch. She even strikes Oedipal sparks with Golding in a scene where she dresses her boy in a new shirt.
All of these performances are as ingratiating as can be. Good thing too, because once you get past the novelty of the all-Asian cast and the setup, Crazy Rich Asians isn’t very provocative or zippy. The problems start with our protagonist. Constance Wu has plenty of comedic chops and exuberance, as her TV show Fresh Off the Boat demonstrates. As Rachel, however, she’s a thoroughly reactive presence, restricted to two modes: abashed and awed. With such a passive lead, you’d expect the film to rev up the energy around her, but apart from an amusing opening salvo wherein a scandalous tweet sets off a chain reaction around the globe, director John M. Chu (of G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Justin Beiber: Never Say Never fame) struggles to get a handle on the story’s rhythms. While he treats the cast and story with respect, the dramatic scenes lack snap, and the gags aren’t exactly razor-sharp (more like butter knife-sharp). Rather than taking advantage of its conceit and seesawing between heartfelt soap opera and madcap comedy, Crazy Rich Asians aims to be earnest, well-coiffed, and tasteful. (Except for a raucous bachelor party on a freighter at sea, even the conspicuous displays of wealth are low-key, as if the filmmakers are afraid to alienate the audience.) Chu plays it safe at every turn, resorting to bits like a “trying on new fashions” montage that might have been fresh about three decades ago, relying on his all-Asian cast to subvert these hoary tropes. No doubt this will play well with general audiences, especially during a climactic wedding scene that goes conventional and plays on the emotions like a sledgehammer (replete with beatific cover of “Can’t Help Falling in Love”). Still, more anarchy and pop in the tone would have elevated this material.
Will Crazy Rich Asians lead to a true Renaissance in mainstream Asian-American cinema? Too early to say, although early returns suggest that a sequel or two is on the way. Still, it’s worth pondering if subsequent productions featuring Asians will be as competently middlebrow as this one. If this is the future of Asian-American filmmaking, there are surely worse fates — but surely there are better ones, too. Poking at the corners of risk, not quite as crazy or rich as the title suggests, Crazy Rich Asians is a fluffy throwaway that may yet point to a way forward — or a path down a cul-de-sac.
