In the heartfelt family dramedy The Farewell, Awkwafina plays Billi, a Chinese-American woman whose grandmother in China is diagnosed with a terminal illness. The Chinese wing of the family decides not to tell the grandmother the bad news, and opts to rush a wedding as a pretext to gather the extended family to say farewell. The American branch of the family is not OK with the deception, but goes along, in varying degrees of reluctance.
Writer-director Lulu Wang based the story on her own family, and opens the film with the title, “Based on an actual lie“.
Indeed, ALL of the family members are constantly telling lies to each other, mostly to avoid conflict or social awkwardness. Is the film’s central Big Lie to avoid unpleasantness? To foster denial? Or, as one uncle posits, to let the entire family absorb the burden of the grandmother’s illness?
Naturally, there’s all the usual forms of family conflict, enhanced – when the grandmother isn’t present – by the stress of grieving. When the grandmother IS present, we have all these very sad people acting artificially happy with ridiculous enthusiasm. The Japanese bride doesn’t understand Chinese, and her reactions to what’s going on are frequently hilarious.
Awkwafina is a tremendous talent; she’s very good here, but underutilized. She only gets one brief, emotionally powerful speech, and the role could have been written into an acting tour de force (like Virginia Madsen’s in Sideways). Too bad. The rest of the cast, especially Hong Lu as the pepper pot grandma, is excellent, too.
Still, this is a very funny and emotionally evocative film. The family dynamics in The Farewell are authentic and universal, and this is a sure-fire audience-pleaser.