Romantic comedies, welcome back! Set It Up ushered in your return earlier this year on Netflix, and now, the Crazy Rich Asians helped return it to the big screen. Apparently a lavish Singaporean Cinderella is all we needed. With a dash of New York City.
We start in the Big Apple, where successful Harvard Professor of Economics Rachel (Constance Wu), is celebrating a year of dating her hunky boyfriend Nick (Henry Golding). Nick likes Rachel enough that he invites her to his best friend Charlie’s (Chris Pang) wedding and finally meet Nick’s family including his mom Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh). However, Rachel quickly learns from her friend Peik Lin (Awkwafina) that her Nick is THE Nick Young, heir to the oldest, richest money in the Far East.
Crazy Rich Asians apparently know how to use their money in really cinematically fun ways that perfectly sell a rom com. Not a single dollar went to waste on this film. If you were making a list, the first thing you’d start with is the clothes. Ooohh, lordy, Director Jon M. Chu makes all these people look like old school Hollywood royalty. Nick’s family is decorated in these lavish regal outfits that look powerful and beautiful, but the creme de la creme are the two leads. Nick has these amazing tuxedos and party outfits that make him look like Gene Kelly or Clark Gable, and Constance Wu gets to participate in the rom com staple makeover scene where she looks stunning and beautiful more than a few times in these amazing tactfully colorful dresses. So we’ve got the outfits, lets move out a bit. Having visited Singapore, I knew it was the jewel of Southeast Asia. There’s so much color, vivacity, and stunning images of beauty that it’s the perfect setting for Crazy Rich Asians. The movie is a travelogue of the best of the island country, using its stunning skyline, foodie world, and cultural mixture to wonderful effect. The fantasy element of a rom com is on full display with these tracking shots, and just the insane amount of time the movie spends at parties. We jump from an engagement soiree to 2 bachelor parties to the most extravagant wedding I’ve ever seen, with a bridal procession that will be in demand for years to come.
If this movie were just window dressing, Crazy Rich Asians would be easily forgotten. However, this is one of the best written rom coms I have seen in a long time, boasting the creme de la creme of all the Asian talent working in cinema today. Obviously, class and personality play big roles in Rachel and Eleanor’s confrontations. However, as played by Michelle Yeoh, Eleanor avoids all the obvious traps of using her power to diminish Rachel, instead using it to test the girl to see if she’s ready for the life of being seen as “lesser than” by society. Wow, that’s impressively thought out! Yeoh gives Eleanor immediate power and the ability to communicate so much by a glance, or eye movement, perfect for Eleanor. Wu is every bit Yeoh’s equal, giving Rachel an adorable charm and effervescence, but underneath that is a woman unafraid to rise to the challenges presented to her from everywhere. The great ABC (American Born Chinese) actress also has the ability to say a lot with a look, best exemplified at the lavish wedding, where Rachel, Eleanor, and Nick say maybe five lines to each other and you see their faces over a montage, saying everything while saying nothing. Around these two female titans, Henry Golding has to look handsome and be sincere and aloof, which he pulls off with aplomb, channeling the great actors of yesteryear with tuxedos, smiles, and shirtless scenes of hotness. Those 3 form the anchor around which Crazy Rich Asians’s boat of wackiness revolves. The movie smartly parallels Rachel and Nick’s relationship with Nick’s equally amazing cousin Astrid (Gemma Chan) and her working class husband Michael (Pierre Png). Though underwritten, this story gets the most rom com cliches, and tightropes over all of them, paying off with one of the great, earned rom com speeches by Gemma Young to Michael. I’m saving the best 2 for last, but it seems every great Asian actor comes in for 1 to 2 scenes to just kill it and support the film. So kudos to Lisa Lu, Ken Jeong, Chris Pang, Sonoya Mizuno, Ronnie Chieng, Jimmy O. Yang, Pierre Png, Fiona Xie, Amy Cheng, and Chieng Mun Koh for giving their talents to the team.
But 2 people deserve special recognition for possibly entering the pantheon of great rom com “best friends” or “sidekicks.” First is Nico Santos, who plays one of Nick’s cousins. You know he’s gonna be good because he calls himself the rainbow sheep of the family. Santos, yes, is playing the gay BFF we’ve seen in stories like this before, but because of the culture dynamics at play, the part feels very fresh and fun, giving Santos lots of agency to help Rachel and be a great family member when called upon (at the wedding you see this). Which brings us to Awkwafina. Playing Rachel’s best friend, we first see her leaving a killer mansion saying “New York in DA HOUSE!!!” From there, we enter Awkwafina’s orbit, where every emotional excitement that can be on display is seen on her face, being pulled into the Young family tree by proxy. The scene where she enters the mansion is pure comedy gold, with Awkwafina amping up her enthusiasm in wonderfully funny ways. She’s so good in those first 20 minutes that the movie kinda lulls until she shows up again, a sign that you’re something special in the movie. Even in scenes where she’s supposed to be caring to Rachel in her moments of need, Awkwafina finds a way to deliver a line in a funny way to keep the story breezy, which it is. I’ve seen enough rom coms to know that those side characters usually vault the movie into legendary status, and Awkwafina does her best to get Crazy Rich Asians there.
I gotta admit, going into Crazy Rich Asians, I had not had the best day. I was excited to see the movie, but that excitement was numbed a bit entering the theatre because of the number of things on my mind. But like every great movie, Crazy Rich Asians found a way to transport me out of my life and into another place and story that I could believe in and enjoy. By the time the credits hit, my heart was full again, planning the spin off of Awkwafina’s life in Singapore. I left it off at she’s a party consultant for the Young family, creating crazy events on Orchard St., and taking over hawker centres with makeover montages.