by Chris Feil
Crazy Rich Asians feels like something sterling from the past, the kind of wholly satisfying and rapturous romantic comedy that we bemoan is missing from the multiplex. Director Jon M. Chu’s loving embrace of the genre pulls its influences from across the decades, infusing Doris Day/Rock Hudson rompiness with the cutting character detail of The Devil Wears Prada. It’s a high mark that the film clears and safely so, sliding with ease onto a shelf next to your rewatchable favorites - and it’s been a minute since something new joined the ranks.
The film’s massive ensemble is led by Constance Wu as Rachel Chu, a self-made economics professor set for her fated meeting with the overseas family of her charming boyfriend Nick Young, played by a painfully dashing Henry Golding. Unbeknownst to Rachel, this family wedding getaway is about to thrust her center stage in front of one of the wealthiest families in Singapore. And all of the generational expectations and deceptive opulence that entails...
Rachel’s more humble background yields some quick assumptions and cruelties from the family, continually highlighting the class and cultural divide between them and the American-born Rachel. Meanwhile their ingrained demands play out in their own individual ways across the Youngs and the adjacent T’Siens and Chengs, making for a sprawling descendency as eccentric as it is fractious. But no one’s dismissal of Rachel comes as tied to their own experience with these expectations as Michelle Yeoh as Nick’s mother Eleanor.
Yeoh is ferocious and surprisingly heartrending as the matriarch, delivering a first look at Rachel that lands a dozen acting beats so fast it makes your head spin. Not unlike Meryl Streep’s vicious nuance to Miranda Priestly, the actress takes every opportunity to complicate Eleanor’s emotional underpinnings and present a woman that’s so much more than the villain she’s positioned as. Her Eleanor’s affection is enmeshed in her pain, all of it suppressed by her function and finely tuned sense of self-negotiation. She’s all the more compelling for making us feel for her while she keeps us at arm’s length, taking our breath away after sending a chill up our spine.
The film’s final showdown between Eleanor and Rachel is a match made in romantic comedy actressing heaven, a showcase for both stars and a distillation of all of the film’s themes into one glorious moment. The film’s cultural significance is almost metatextual here, driving both the conflict between them and the rousing catharsis it allows. Up until now, Wu delivers a performance of sharp and casual comedic force, the kind of film-shouldering effortlessness that often goes underappreciated. But in going toe to toe with the deeply formidable Yeoh and seizing its vital emotional context, Wu proves to be a full-fledged movie star.
Crazy Rich Asians is simply a great time at the movies built to relieve through catharsis and creature comforts alike. The film is a borderline pornographic display of abs, fabrics, floral, and food, delivering the kind of summer escapism that indulges our senses between pulling heartstrings. While the jampacked ensemble offers delights with even the smallest players, our crowdpleaser is Awkwafina as Rachel’s college friend and Singapore confidant Peik Lin, offering plainspoken audience surrogacy and some of the year’s biggest belly laughs. All this makes for a slick piece of pop adaptation, occasionally dulling Kwan’s sharper Austenian edges but also streamlining what meandered on the page. It begs a little more bite, with its conventionally becoming a hindrance, if partly the point - ambition isn’t the name of the game.
But while the film is rooted in the fenceposts of romantic comedy tradition, it also feels like a gift from a more promising near future, one where its shattering of the homogenized status quo isn’t even less common than its genre. We all may have been waiting a long time for something with the romantic charms of Crazy Rich Asians, but some in the audience have been waiting much longer for something to represent its world. That importance beats its heart onto the screen, creating a lovingly made movie to love all the more.
Grade: B+
Oscar Chances: We'll withhold our Best Popular Film thoughts until we get some category clarity. However, should the Academy not be so frightened by the contemporary and the playful, the film would be a worthy Costume Design and Art Direction nominee. But a Best Supporting Actress push for Michelle Yeoh can and should happen!