THE FAREWELL

PLOT Aspiring Chinese-American writer Billi (Awkwafina) butts heads with her family’s traditional values when they elect not to tell their matriarch, Nai Nai (Zhao Shuzhen), that she has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. It all comes to a head when the extended clan gathers for a lavish family wedding.

WRITER AND DIRECTOR Lulu Wang draws on her own experience as the product of two often conflicting cultures to spin a subtle and nuanced tale of family and identity. A precisely mixed dramedy, the resulting film will have you guffawing with laughter one minute and choking back tears the next as it deftly guides us through a maze built out of traditions, relationships, old traumas and new hopes.

The central conflict is a fascinating one. As explained by Billi’s Uncle Haibo (Jiang Yongbo), the idea is that the family will bear the emotional burden of her impending death for Nai Nai, letting her have a few last months of peace and happiness, effectively socialising the angst over her mortality. For Billi, though, who has dwelt in the U.S. since early childhood, this robs Nai Nai of her agency. However, her assumptions about the obvious wrongness of the family’s duplicity are challenged when it’s revealed that Nai Nai did the same thing for her own ailing husband.

Which all sounds heavy going, but The Farewell refuses to wallow (although there are moments of pure emotion that hit like a punch).

It’s frequently hilarious – one scene set in a cemetery (bear with me) in which the gathered family, leaving offerings to the spirit of Nai Nai’s late husband, argue over had he quit smoking before he died, is an absolute highlight, with Haibo pointing out that since the old man is already dead, leaving a cigarette on his grave is unlikely to do him any further harm. At another point, the family resorts to having Nai Nai’s test results forged in order to prevent her from learning about her illness, an effort that simply beggars belief for Western audiences but certainly rings true in the context of the film.

Still, The Farewell’s real strength is its adroit cast, of which Awkwafina is the absolute standout. While she’s well and truly proved her comedy chops in fare like Crazy Rich Asians and Bad Neighbours 2, here she effortlessly pivots into more dramatic territory, embodying a mix of self-doubt, defiance, and affection that rings true in every scene. If she wasn’t already a star, it’d be labelled a star-making turn. The rest of the ensemble doesn’t slouch, either, and while veteran character actor Tzi Ma is great as Billi’s dutiful father and Diana Lin is excellent as Billi’s prickly and conflicted mother, it’s Zhao Shuzhen as the seemingly oblivious object of the whole exercise who carries the day. She’s a heartwarming revelation as the spry and irascible grandmother, dispensing homespun wisdom like a sage as her descendants do their best to keep her from figuring out what’s really going on, and the simple conversation scenes between her and Awkwafina are incredibly moving. TJ

Verdict

Warm, funny, and occasionally heartbreaking, The Farewell presents a complicated cross-cultural problem with remarkably insight and humanity, and marks both director Lulu Wang and star Awkwafina as vital voices worth keeping a close eye on going forward. Watch it with family.