Film: "The Farewell"
Awkwafina (“Crazy Rich Asians”) shines in this gently humorous, bittersweet drama about a family that stages a fake wedding to surreptitiously say goodbye to their dying matriarch.
After learning their beloved matriarch has terminal lung cancer, the family opts not to tell her about the diagnosis—a decision with which headstrong and emotional writer Billi (Awkwafina) strongly disagrees. Nonetheless, she joins the "impromptu" family reunion created by a fake wedding, awkwardly trying to rekindle old bonds and surreptitiously saying goodbye. As Billi negotiates a minefield of family expectations, she finds there's a lot to celebrate: the chance to rediscover the country she left as a child, her grandmother's wondrous spirit and the ties that keep on binding even when so much goes unspoken.
A heartfelt celebration of both the way we perform family and the way we live "family,", writer/director Lulu Wang masterfully interweaves a gently humorous depiction of the good lie in action with a thoughtful exploration of how our cultural heritage does and does not travel with us when we leave our homes. D: Lulu Wang, US, 2019