The Farewell
Lulu Wang finds a vehicle for her controlled, precise direction in a personal family drama
Even if The Farewell was not a work of autobiography, it would still be a highly personal picture for Chinese-American director Lulu Wang. Broadly speaking, her new film is about the very tension that comes from being both Chinese and American, and how the self-preservation of assimilation can be uncomfortable to reconcile with the strength of one’s heritage. But it’s one particular tradition that focusses Wang’s concerns into something sharper, at once probingly intimate and appealing in a broad, crowd-pleasing fashion.
An uncharacteristically gentle Awkwafina plays Wang’s avatar Billi, a New York-based 20-something whose grandmother (affectionately nicknamed Nai Nai and played by veteran Chinese soap actress Zhao Shuzhen) has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. But the family, as per tradition, has kept the diagnosis from Nai Nai to preserve her happiness in her final months, an idea with which Billi is not comfortable. Using a wedding as cover, the family comes together in China after years of being apart to see Nai Nai for what might be the last time.
Wang’s closeness with this story is what makes its realisation especially consummate. A revolving door of characters (Billi’s family exceeds 20 people), who are nonetheless drawn with fine, sophisticated brush-strokes, weave in and out of Billi’s experience. Around dinner tables in expertly directed sequences, the family hashes out their grievances with each other, all the while keeping Nai Nai’s diagnosis under wraps. She can’t understand why everyone is so tense (though she is also far from a clueless retiree archetype – she’s perhaps the most intricately detailed character in the movie, a love letter to her real-life counterpart). But it’s because she thinks everyone is here for a wedding; in reality, they’re here for a funeral.
Released by 20 Sep by Entertainment Film; certificate PG