Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
Directed by John M. Chu
Written by Adele Lim, Peter Chiarelli
Starring Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Awkwafina
Release Date August 15th, 2018
Published August 15th, 2018
Crazy Rich Asians stars Constance Wu, star of the hit series Fresh Off the Boat, as Rachel Chu, an Economics Professor who is in love with Nick Young (Henry Golding). What she doesn’t yet know is that Nick’s family is crazy rich. The Young family has made billions of dollars and are a big deal in their home country. So big a deal in fact, that when Nick’s best friend is getting married much of the speculation and attention surrounding the ceremony centers on Nick and his family.
Rachel is about to get a crash course in Asian high society when she agrees to go as Nick’s date to his best friend’s, Colin (Chris Pang) and Araminta (Sonoya Mizuno), wedding. They will travel around to the other side of the globe, be immersed in the kind of glamour only the super rich understand and Rachel will have to deal with Nick’s disapproving mother Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh, glamorous as ever), while navigating the choppy water of being the girlfriend of the most wanted man in Asian high society.
On the bright side, Rachel’s pal from college, Peik (Awkwafina) is on hand to help, as is the one member of Nick’s family that Rachel has met, fashion icon Astrid (Gemma Chan). Rachel will need all the support she can get, especially when she’s thrown to the wolves at a bachelorette party where it appears that only women who’ve failed at dating Nick in the past are on the guest list and each has their eye on taking down Rachel the outsider.
Crazy Rich Asians is a relatively basic romantic comedy when you take away the social politics at play in having a mainstream romance with an all Asian cast. What director John Chu gets right however, is not relying on the tired romantic comedy plot requirements. The best modern rom-coms are aware that we know everything about their plot mechanics, what we want are great characters who stand apart and above stock stories.
Constance Wu’s Rachel is just the kind of character we need to get passed all of the overly familiar elements of Crazy Rich Asians. Wu is a wonderful comic actress with smart instincts and a terrific face, brilliant eyes that communicate as much as any dialogue might. She’s a wonderful comic player and yet down to earth enough to ground the story of Crazy Rich Asians in something we can relate to and invest in.
Henry Golding is terrific as well, if a little more eye-candy than his co-star. Golding’s shirtless scenes are plentiful in Crazy Rich Asians and the the beefcake is rarely necessary. Thankfully, he’s also given a few normal scenes where we get a sense of how much he loves Rachel and the sacrifices he’s willing to make to show her how much he loves her. He is an active part of the plot rather than a function of Rachel’s half of the plot, opposite Michelle Yeoh’s scheming Eleanor.
Another thing I must commend Crazy Rich Asians for is creating realistic stakes surrounding Rachel and Nick’s relationship and the class warfare at play. A lazier movie might ask us to simply accept that class is a reason why two people who love each other would be pushed apart, but Crazy Rich Asians digs into the emotions at play and makes them part of the game of chicken that Rachel is forced to play with Eleanor.
It’s not a revolutionary plot but it’s done well enough and with enough laughs that I really enjoyed Crazy Rich Asians. That the film has an all Asian cast is the most notable thing about the movie but the creators didn’t rest on history or novelty, they hired a brilliant cast and gave them rich characters and emotions to play within a familiar plot circumstance. We’ve seen much of this before but not with this racial twist and not with these wonderful characters.
John M. Chu is greatly improving as a director. His previous feature outing was Now You See Me 2 and while many critics didn’t care for it, I found it to be a heck of a lot of fun, the work of a playful director. With Crazy Rich Asians that playfulness is on display once again and again, I found it charming. Chu has a great eye for set design when he has a good budget and he takes full advantage of his significant budget here, showing us all of the glamour and excitement having money can bring.
The lavish setting serves to help further put us in the mind of Rachel who is completely overwhelmed by the surroundings and is reeling emotionally from the aspects of Nick’s life that he was hiding from her and the family that is not accepting of her as an outsider. It’s a whirlwind of emotions and Constance Wu is incredibly sympathetic but also feisty and intelligent, able to cut through the nonsense and stay true to herself.
Again, all of that is pretty standard culture clash, fish out of water, romantic comedy stuff. It’s just greatly elevated by one of the best comic actresses to come along in some time. Wu is a real winner and because of her and the fun direction by John M. Chu, I’m eager to recommend Crazy Rich Asians.
