I lost two grandmothers to
cancer, and both times, everyone knew it was coming. It’s one of those cultural
norms you don’t think too much about without being presented with a new
perspective. In China, for example, when someone is dying, the family usually
keeps it a secret, the logic being that the knowledge and stress will worsen
their condition and make their final days miserable. That central conflict of
individualism vs. collectivism is at the center of The Farewell, a sweet,
poignant comedy about coming to terms with death.
Based on the real-life
experiences of writer/director Lulu Wang (which was also covered on an episode
of NPR’s This
American Life), our story follows Billi (Awkwafina), a Chinese-American
woman whose parents (Zhi Ma and Diana Lin) inform her that her grandmother Nai
Nai (Shuzhen Zhao) has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Everyone has
agreed to not tell her and organized a big family gathering under the guise of
a wedding so that they all get the chance to see her one last time. The decision
to keep Nai Nai in the dark about her impending death confounds Billi, who was
born in China but raised in America for most of her life. Although encouraged
to stay in New York over fear that she’ll blow their cover, Billi arrives unannounced, and the temptation to tell her the truth threatens to
bring the festivities crashing down.
The Farewell tackles
a myriad of subjects that have all been thoroughly combed over in film: dealing
with death, generational gaps, cultural differences, and finding levity in
tragedy. (Think the works of Yasujiro Ozu or Gurundir Chadha.) This has plenty
in common with those kinds of films, but by zeroing in on a single cultural
difference, she’s able to mine a ton of drama, humor and catharsis from its
ensemble cast. The rest of Billi’s extended family see nothing wrong with
keeping up the lie and are much more skilled at hiding their true feelings than
she is, and the lingering question of whether or not she’ll spill the beans is
what keeps the audience on edge. Eventually, as she watches Nai Nai bustle
about with making sure the wedding goes smoothly, prepares a surplus of food
for the swarm of family members who come in and out of her cozy little
apartment, and go about her day blissfully unaware of her fate, telling her so seems
more and more like a moral imperative. The question about the responsibility is
one that comes up a lot. While Billi is the outlier in the decision to not tell
Nai Nai the truth, they’re disparate in their outlook, and those clashing
ideals come about between the homegrown Chinese, the Chinese-Americans and a
few who spent time abroad in Japan. Shot from the perspective of a
Chinese-American millennial in China, it shows that her ignorance doesn’t stop
at the lie.
This sense of alienation from
your own family and being a foreigner in your own country of origin is made all
the more apparent through the film’s cinematography. Shot mostly in Wang’s
hometown of Changchun, the film is comprised of innumerable wide shots of
feeling small in such a vast place, even though Changchun isn’t a very big city.
The numerous scenes of the family around the dinner table are framed in
incredibly inventive ways. In one, each headshot is film from between the head
and shoulders of whoever’s sitting across them, while another gives a sense of
movement by sitting them at a rotating table with a carousel of food constantly
moving around just below frame.
The cast deserves all the
credit in the world for making this as good as it is. Most people who know Awkwafina,
whether through her music or her breakout performances in Oceans’ Eight or
Crazy
Rich Asians know she’s a comedian by trade, but here she’s allowed to show
more emotional depth, constantly apologizing for her rusty Mandarin, and barely
hiding her sadness and anxiety while straining to conceal its source. The real
star of the show, however, is Shuzhen Zhao as Nai Nai. She’s stubborn and opinionated
in a way that only an octogenarian woman can be, but with that comes a never-ending
well of love and devotion to her family, showing us just how much of irreplaceable
she is. There is a silver lining to all this, but sharing that would be giving
away the game.
It’s hard to describe a movie
about cancer as life-affirming, but The Farewell achieves such a feat.
It will make you laugh, it’ll make you cry, but most of all, it’ll make you
want to call your grandparents. An easy contender for one of the best films of
the year.
8/10
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