The Farewell

Sometimes, the movie argues, it’s the things we don’t say that prove how much we care. Billi’s path to acceptance of this makes The Farewell one of the most heartfelt homecoming films in years.

The film is a heady, gentle and emotional journey, but Wang also packs the frame with layered conversation and funny background action. She makes the family dynamics feel universally familiar while also presenting an authentic portrait of China and Chinese families.

Building to the potential of a confrontation with the wedding climax, The Farewell threatens to melt into sentimentalism, but Wang dodges the obvious pathways to a tidy resolution.

Unlike "Crazy Rich Asians," which had eyes for narrative substance but shamelessly flirted with the superficial, The Farewell is a more substantive, engrossing and ultimately deeper work about the bonds that hold and strengthen us.

Those looking for a complex, funny and touching family will be more than rewarded for seeking this out.

It’s a slight film at times but one that builds to a crescendo of emotion.

The Farewell is so fixated on its principle problem that it doesn’t allow its story or its characters to veer from it, or find further complexities in it. There’s only so many scenes a story can take of family members trying to keep the truth from grandma before it become less compelling.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Writer/director Lulu Wang relates the semi-autobiographical story of a family grappling with the ethical trappings behind hiding the news of a terminal cancer diagnosis from the woman with the illness -- the family matriarch. For many reasons, "The Farewell" could've been an absolute barn burner of an emotional journey, but instead we're given the more low-key approach; something that may or may not align with your taste preferences. For my money, I've always preferred films of the more "heart on one's sleeve" persuasion, and while things do broach upon that territory towards the very end, it almost seems like a bit too little given too late. You're also met with an admittedly intriguing moral dilemma that's teased and prodded at throughout the film's running time, but it's one that's almost completely done away with in the film's final moments (which is a moral conundrum in and of itself, considering that it involves one of the more remarkable facts from the actual story behind the film). Overall, "The Farewell" left a bit to be desired for me, but it's not necessarily a watch I want to take back.

The original title for this post was "'The Farewell' Review: An Angsty Awkwafina Headlines This One Note Song." That was before we noticed that the film currently maintains a 99% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. After seeing that, we had to take stock of the situation by contemplating whose opinion is closer to being "correct" with regard to judging the overall quality of the movie: ours or mainstream critics. For comparison, last year's breakout foreign film 'Shoplifters' also maintains a 99% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It won the Palm d'Or at Cannes in addition to 43 other awards around the world. The plot to 'Shoplifters' is wonderfully deep and complex. The acting is superb and the camerawork is among the best of the year. Alternatively, 'The Farewell' exhibits almost none of those attributes. The plot is rather mundane, we're never given much of a reason to care about any of the characters, and the dialogue is pedestrian, at best. So we'll leave it to you, film fans, to tell us who you agree with more: us or them. Go see the film, form an opinion, and let us know on social media.

(Mauro Lanari) Petulant grandmother all the time, her granddaughter with pout and hump and she too for the whole duration, in the midst of these two one-dimensional protagonists a mediocre ethical dilemma dripping with melodramatic rhetoric.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]