As someone who agrees that Hollywood is whiter than a Republican national fundraiser, I knew it was something of a social obligation that I should go out and watch Crazy Rich Asians. I never read the book, nor did I have any inkling of an idea of what the plot was about going into it, but I still figured it would be a good idea to support any progression for Asians in a white-dominated industry, if we want to have any modicum of a chance of earning any respect up in this motherfucker.
The movie itself was fine. Fairly predictable and extremely formulaic, but refreshing in the simple sense that every face didn’t look like Finn Wittrock or Balakey Lively. Constance Wu carries the film brilliantly, and it’s super gratifying to hear her speak in her actual voice and not as over-the-top tiger mom from Fresh Off the Boat. I didn’t even realize it was her until seeing her name in the credits although I thought she looked familiar, but Michelle Yeoh’s presence as a cunningly savage rich Asian mom is like an anime where you can feel an aura emanating from her whenever she comes on screen.
It kind of goes without saying that I rolled my eyes at the casting of some hafu named “Henry Golding” as the male lead of the flim, when surely it most certainly could have been cast to an actual Chinese or other Asian guy that didn’t look like a cross between Lawrence from Westworld and a young Ralph Macchio. But seeing as how this film was being released in white Hollywood (oxymoron?), there had to be some compromise to make sure white power had some degree of a tether to their oppressive natures. But it’s okay, because as bland and useless of a character Nick Young was, the film had no intention of being carried by him in the first place.
There’s one character in the film whose storyline carries almost zero correlation with the main plot at all, and could presumably not been needed at all whatsoever. I’m going to assume it’s vastly different in the book and has more of a connection, but for the film’s sake, I’m going to assume it was included probably solely because the actress involved in it is somewhat known, extremely pretty, and needs to have requisite screen time in order to justify her casting.
As for the rest of the film, it had some fun characters and was moderately enjoyable, even with the obnoxious people in the theater, to where I couldn’t decide which was worse between the incessant commentary in Mandarin from the girls next to me, or the incessant commentary from the stereotypical black women who felt the need to very loudly opinionate on everything.
Continue reading “The sociological entertainment of Crazy Rich Asians”
