Sunday, September 2, 2018

"Crazy Rich Asians"

 ½ 

Crazy Rich Asians has been hailed as a groundbreaker, and representationally there is no doubt about that -- it's a story about Asian people who are played by Asian people without stereotyping. From a storytelling standpoint, though, Crazy Rich Asians is as tried and true as they come, which is anything but faint praise. Here's a movie that revels in an old-fashioned love-conquers-all plot and that makes no pretense at all about being anything other than a straightforward romantic comedy.

That the cast and characters are all Asian, that the setting is distinctly Asian -- Singaporean, to be specific -- and that the movie contains scenes and references that are Asian through-and-through, is obviously its selling point; just look at the title. But that's not the only reason to see the movie, which does come as something as a relief after a pre-opening media blitz that emphasized the race of its cast almost to the exclusion of the film's many other sparkling qualities.

Chief among those are its old-fashioned, tried-and-true plot: A young, self-made professional woman falls in love with handsome, debonair guy who seems like he's a man of the people until he invites her to his family home, only to have her discover that he's super, ultra rich. It's a rom-com fish-out-of-water story, and in Crazy Rich Asians its complete with a stern, ice-cold mother who dotes on her son; a set of gossipy, mean-spiritied aunts; best friends who are always good for a deep talk; and false friend who will stop at nothing to keep our hero and heroine apart.

Its familiarity is why Crazy Rich Asians is at once supremely satisfying and somehow a mild disappointment: It could have done just about anything, but it sticks with the formula, and how. When Hollywood made a movie like this in the 1930s, set in East Coast mansions where men and women dressed for dinner and were served by uniformed house staff, there was generally no commentary made about the economic state of a world heading into depression, and glamour existed for its own sake.

That's exactly the way it is in Crazy Rich Asians. There is no talk of the economy, or of the ostentatious way these people live their lives. There is no subtext of socio-economic disparity.  Indeed, if there are any areas of Singapore that are less than jaw-droppingly glorious, we see none of them in this movie -- the only thing it cares about is luxuriating in its own excess.

The movie opens in New York, where NYU economics professor Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) gets an unexpected invitation from her boyfriend Nick Young (Henry Golding, who is making his film debut here, but seems preternaturally comfortable as a leading man) to come with him to Singapore for a family wedding. Rachel, who wants to visit her old college roommate Peik Lin (Awkwafina) accepts with no awareness at all that her beau is not just from Singapore -- his family basically made Singapore, and is one of the wealthiest in the world.

Does Rachel have a hard time fitting in?  Does she get rejected by the rich people?  Does that lead to misunderstandings with her boyfriend?  Does she have to turn to her best friend for emotional support when things get tough?  Have you ever seen a movie before?  If so, you'll recognize the plot, and Crazy Rich Asians will offer you no surprises on that front.  Rachel will have to stand up for herself.  She will (in a way that hasn't changed at all since Pygmalion, at least) need to become one of "them" in order to assert her independence. (Yeah, that bit is still as weird and uncomfortable now as it always has been.)

But Wu and Golding make an ideal screen couple. Nick's imperious mother is played with perfect iciness by Michelle Yeoh. Akwafina has all the best one-liners as the best friend (who's also rich, but merely wildly rich, not "crazy" rich).  And the movie spares no expense to show the world of these crazy rich people, these people whose lives have nothing in common with anyone sitting in the audience.  And director Jon M. Chu spares no expense to take us deep into the lives of people who are exactly what the title promises.

The settings are ambitious, sometimes ridiculous, always over the top, frequently gaudy and never less than fun.  There's a lot for the eyes here, and for the ears, too, with pop songs and standards rendered in multiple languages. Crazy Rich Asians is often crazy good fun.

But there's a darker side to the movie that's not explored much -- it's almost obsessed with money, it seems unsure whether it views money as the root of all problems or as the very best thing in the world.  Maybe it doesn't need or even want to take an ethical stance, but when, near the end of the film, one key character (you can probably guess who this will be) says love is more important than all the money, Crazy Rich Asians doesn't seem so sure about that.

Think back to a movie like 1980's Arthur, which was almost the same story but set in America. When  Arthur talks about willingly giving up his fortune to marry his working-class girlfriend, he seems aware of the stakes, and can understand what they'd mean. But here, it's hard to be so sure, and in the end the movie plays it both ways, turning Nick into a nice guy who also can stay super-mega-rich.

Less is made of the dilemma facing Rachel, and her choice is made to seem the far less interesting one here. She's put through a lot of unhappiness in the film, for the sake of proving her love. Crazy Rich Asians seems to be saying that life can't possibly be all that good unless you stay really wealthy.

If it had taken a little more time to really contemplate the problems that wealth brings, maybe it would have ended up a little emotionally more, well, rich. And while all that is problematic enough to make me second-guess at least some of what I enjoyed while watching the film, it's undeniable that Crazy Rich Asians is an entertaining, stimulating delight.  It doesn't want to make any big statements about, well, pretty much anything, it just wants to delight us with a story of two people trying to overcome the obstacles put in the path of love.

To that end, it might not be groundbreaking -- and it doesn't need to be.  It just needs to be a lot of fun, and that's exactly what it is.




Viewed September 1, 2018 -- AMC Burbank 16

1950


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