The Farewell is a real highlight of 2019 in cinema

Deeply moving and surprisingly funny, this new released wowed audiences at Sundance earlier this year. It’s easy to see why.

Rarely does a movie like The Farewell come along.

Look around the cinema at the end and you’ll find a throng of bleary-eyed and emotional cinemagoers, probably all about to pull their phone out and call their grandmother or another loved one.

It’s that kind of movie, one that reminds you of the restorative bonds of family.

But that doesn’t mean The Farewell is some depressing, cheap and manipulative melodrama. This is an intricately constructed, deeply personal and surprisingly funny story — one of the real highlights of 2019 in cinema.

Written and directed by Asian-American filmmaker Lulu Wang, the story comes from her own experiences with her family, which was first documented as a segment on radio program This American Life in 2016.

Can a lie ever be a good lie?

Billi (Ocean’s 8 and Crazy Rich Asians’ Awkwafina) is a Chinese-born New Yorker, struggling to launch a writing career. She’s close to her grandma, Nai Nai (Zhao Shuzhen), who she chats with often on the phone in her limited Chinese vocabulary.

When her parents tell her Nai Nai has been diagnosed with cancer and has only three months to live, the real shocker is that the family will be keeping that piece of information to themselves — Nai Nai is not to know.

Billi finds the decision baffling and wrong but everyone tells her that that is the cultural norm in China — people believe it’s the fear of death that kills you.

A wacky plan is concocted so that Nai Nai’s family can return to China to say goodbye without arousing her suspicion. Billi’s Japan-based cousin and his girlfriend will get married and there will be a big banquet wedding in Changchun, China, where Nai Nai lives.

At first, Billi’s mother Jian (Diana Lin) suggest she doesn’t make the trip because she can’t be trusted to keep her emotions in check and not give the game away. Billi goes anyway.

Nai Nai is a firecracker, a tiny package of energy and formidable will, a matriarch overseeing one of her grandkids’ weddings and determined to get the lobster package she was promised by the restaurant. If Nai Nai has any inkling about her prognosis, she’s keeping it to herself.

It’s not just the specificity of Billi’s story that makes The Farewell so compelling, it’s in the nuances, authenticity and care of the immigrant experience as written and directed by Wang.

Here, it’s not a sense of not belonging in your adopted home, it’s the sense of feeling disconnected from your ancestral home.

The Farewell is an emotionally resonant experience

Billi doesn’t understand the customs and secrecy about dying in China because she grew up in America. When her uncle Haibin (Jiang Yongbo) explains to her that lying to Nai Nai is the kind thing to do because it allows the family to carry the burden for her, he’s talking about differences between eastern and western philosophies, of the individual versus the collective.

The Farewell captures that pull between two cultures that immigrants (first, second and even third generations) feel in how they view themselves and where they belong in the world.

The guilt felt and displayed by Billi’s father Haiyan (Tzi Ma) and her uncle at not being there for their mother because they both live overseas is something that will resonate with everyone separated from their family by distance.

Ditto the many dinner scenes in which those returning from overseas and those who stayed have passive aggressive arguments over which country is “superior” — it’s hilarious because it’s oh-so-familiar.

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Awkwafina stuns in this dramatic role

Awkwafina is known for her comedic work, especially as scene-stealer Peik Lin in Crazy Rich Asians, but it’s often said that comedy actors transition better into drama than the other way around — they have a wonderful understanding of timing, and there’s usually a pathos in comedy that the laughs can’t always conceal.

Awkwafina is a revelation in this role with her subtle layers of grief, confusion, love and defiance.

Wang balances the emotionality of the film with frequent moments of levity, some of it built around the cultural clash of Chinese banquet weddings and those strange photo shoots. But The Farewell is never condescending or mocking, a line that could’ve easily been crossed in the wrong hands.

The Farewell is a beautifully moving film whose emotional core pulses with strength and heart.

Rating: 4.5/5

The Farewell is in cinemas from today

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