BEFORE: I'm working on closing the gap now, I hope to have a rough framework before the end of Memorial Day weekend that I know will get me to the end of the year. Then my mind will sort of be at peace - otherwise it can be very difficult to make decisions. Will watching "Crazy Rich Asians" be a good idea, or will it end up making the perfect year impossible? I'm probably over-exaggerating, because I know I can make it to mid-July, so the chance of me needing this film to make a crucial link later on is pretty remote, but take a film like "Night School", for example. I'm planning to work it in this week, but should I instead save it for back-to-school time in August/September? I could eliminate it from this week's chain and re-arrange things to close the gap, but is that a good idea? And then what does that do to my count? Should I go see "John Wick 3" in the theater after watching "John Wick 2", will that take up a slot I'll need later for something else, or if I don't go see it, will that leave a one-movie gap at the end of the year that I can't fill? This is why I need a plan in place, it would be so much easier if I can close the gap in August/September, it could affect all of my other decisions.
Awkwafina carries over from "Ocean's Eight".
THE PLOT: This contemporary romantic comedy, based on a bestseller, follows native New Yorker Rachel Chu to Singapore to meet her boyfriend's family.
AFTER: In a way I'm way out of my league tonight, I know very little about Asian culture or how rich people in Singapore live - for that matter, I know very little about how rich people live in America, but that's a different point. But some things should be universal, right? I mean, money is money, love is love and family is family, no matter where you go. Well, to a point that turns out to be the case, but I still felt like I was sort of clueless while watching this one.
Obviously there's a foreign society where the older generation feels a certain way about family, disapproves of the way the younger kids live their lives, and still adheres somewhat to concepts like arranged marriages, inheriting wealth from their parents, honoring their grandparents and so forth. And apparently some of them HATE the way that Americans live, following their "passion" while living in tiny apartments on the lower East Side, maybe calling their parents every few weeks and visiting their grandparents in their nursing home almost never. They're not completely wrong.
But then there's part of this film that just wants to show off, to display these giant mansions in Singapore and parties on top of skyscrapers with fireworks going off in the background, there's the prerequisite "fashion show" montage where the lead actress tries on about 100 dresses (that were apparently just lying around) before finding the perfect one to wear to the wedding so all eyes will be on her, and her boyfriend will suddenly want to propose. People who can just take a week off from work to attend a wedding on the other side of the world, where the bride and her entourage don't think twice about getting in a private plane to visit an exclusive spa in Bali or something, while the groom's ushers have filled a container ship in international waters with a dance studio, pools and a DJ booth, plus some kind of modified bazooka that launches fireworks. It's a bit much, but I GET IT, you don't have to be white to have a lot of money, a point which this film drives home again and again.
But I'm running into the same conundrum I had yesterday with "Ocean's Eight", a film with empowered women who decided to use that power to steal jewelry. The Asian people depicted here have a lot of money, yes, but what are they doing with it? Most of them seem just as inclined to waste it as Caucasian people would, which is a point that can be made, but I think they should aim a bit higher. The male lead has a large family with a lot of cousins, and this enables a sort of multi-story format where several stories are being juggled at once, but so many of the rich Asians are depicted as petty, stuck-up or just plain obnoxious, so I have to wonder if this constitutes progress or not. I'm on the fence.
But then again, the film is called "Crazy Rich Asians" - for a while I was unsure if this meant they were both crazy AND rich, or so rich that they were "crazy rich". It's the old conundrum about the band "Cowboy Junkies" all over again - like, are they cowboys AND junkies, or junkies for all things cowboy? It's a bit unclear. Speaking of music, I guess you really haven't heard the songs "Material Girl" and "Yellow" until you've heard them sung in Mandarin. Still, it's a bit weird that the film showed us Nick Young's mother, grandmother several cousins and many "aunties", but we never saw his father, who was always away on business. I guess they're saving him for the sequel?
And sorry, but giant NITPICK POINT - if the older generation of Asian people wants to reject all things American, including Rachel, because American millennials "follow their passion" and "only think about themselves" - and I'm NOT saying they're wrong here, because American millennials DO suck and DO think mostly about themselves - but have they SEEN their own kids lately? All the younger Asian people do in this film is party! How is that not thinking about themselves, their own pleasure? They jet off to spas, they party on cargo ships, they party in mansions and on top of skyscrapers - if any of them work for a living, I must have missed it. The only character who works is Nick's father, and he's M.I.A. So I'm sorry, crazy rich Asians, you can reject the American mindset all you want, but it seems your millennial kids are more American than you think. Am I the only one who sees the hypocrisy here, or is this meant to be ironic somehow?
Also starring Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh (last seen in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2"), Gemma Chan (last seen in "Captain Marvel"), Lisa Lu, Ken Jeong (last seen in "Avengers: Endgame"), Sonoya Mizuno (last seen in "Annihilation"), Chris Pang, Jimmy O. Yang (last seen in "Patriots Day"), Ronny Chieng, Remy Hii, Nico Santos (last seen in "Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2"), Jing Lusi (last seen in "Before I Go to Sleep"), Pierre Png, Fiona Xie, Victoria Loke, Janice Koh, Amy Cheng, Koh Chieng Mun, Tan Kheng Hua, Selena Tan, Kris Aquino, Tumurbaatar Enkhtungalag, Carmen Soo, Constance Lau, Peter Carroll, Daniel Jenkins, Harry Shum Jr.
RATING: 4 out of 10 mahjong tiles
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