Movie Breakdown: The Farewell

Pre-Screening Stance:

I’ve never really understood the whole Awkwafina thing, but The Farewell looks pretty good, so I’m willing to give her another shot.  Maybe it’ll make me stop cringing whenever I see her name on things.

Post-Screening Ramble:

I can’t say The Farewell is a movie that has to be seen in an actual theater, but it is really good.  The film is centered around Billi (Awkwafina), a 20-something woman struggling with the fact that her beloved grandmother, Nai Nai (Shuzhen Zhou), has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.  Further complicating things is that Billi’s family has decided to not tell Nai Nai about her condition, as they believe it will just speed up the inevitable.  Billi doesn’t agree with this, but she sucks it up and hops a flight to China for a fake wedding that her family has hastily tossed together in order to provide everyone a shot at a stealthy goodbye.  If you’re thinking this sounds like the saddest of setups, I don’t blame you, but thankfully director Lulu Wang never lets The Farewell slide off that cliff.  Instead she swings the film more onto the charming, sentimental side of things, and it makes it something that’s really enjoyable.  Kudos to Awkwafina, too. She’s very engaging and relatable as Billi, who doesn’t quite “come of age” here, but she does figure out a way to right herself in a tough situation that just doesn’t make sense to her.

There’s a couple of small bits that feel unnecessary in the grand scheme of things (like Billi’s application to an arts program), but The Farewell is a nice film.  Catch it sometime.

One Last Thought:

The Farewell has bounced around in my head quite a bit since I saw it.  Here’s what I’ve settled on – I have no idea whether or not I’d want to know that I was dying.  It seems like something a person should be made aware of, but maybe it is better to just push forward as though everything is fine.