Only Moderately Crazy About "Crazy Rich Asians" (Again)

Hi everyone,

We're back with another review of a rewatched movie, but this time I actually remembered watching the movie the first time!

Let's talk about "Crazy Rich Asians" (2018)!

I wanted to rewatch this movie because I recently devoured the book on which it is based and am almost done with the second in Kevin Kwan's three-part series.  I remembered reasonably enjoying the movie when I saw it in theaters, and was excited to rewatch it with the greater familiarity conferred by reading its source material.

Upon rewatching the film, my feelings are mixed.  On one hand, "Crazy Rich Asians" is a gluttonous visual feast befitting its title: it is a bananas explosion of all of the glitz and indulgence that inordinate amounts of wealth could make possible.  The movie also benefits from its extremely likable leads, Constance Wu (as Rachel) and Henry Golding (as Nick).  There are many silly and enjoyable moments, as well as some genuinely moving ones.  

I was particularly struck by the pivotal moment of the wedding of Araminta Lee (played by Sonoya Mizuno) and Colin Khoo (played by Chris Pang), despite its significant alteration from how it was described in the book.  Instead of suspended trees and bridesmaids holding arches of blossoming cherry tree branches, Araminta and Colin's wedding procession is transformed into a firefly-filled rice paddy through which the bride, dressed to evoke a glittering crane, elegantly strides down a watery aisle to her future husband.  Although this diverges from the book, it is successful in conveying both an ostentatious display of wealth and stagecraft, but also an arrestingly beautiful and emotionally evocative reveal of bride to groom that prompts a fleeting but crucial expression of love between our heroes.  The difference between film and novel in this instance is therefore pretty immaterial.

That said, I found that "Crazy Rich Asians" suffers from some notable weaknesses.

The casting feels surprisingly uneven.  As members of the Goh family, Ken Jeong and Awkwafina (not to mention Jimmy O. Yang as the excruciatingly over-indulged Bernard Tai) are predictably over-the-top in ways that are at turns goofy and cringey.  Alternatively, Michelle Yeoh lends Nick's mother Eleanor hefty gravitas, and Gemma Chan is so poised as Nick's cousin Astrid as to be almost robotic.  It feels like these characters don't belong in the same movie together, and it places a lot of pressure on Wu and Golding to be the natural, normal-seeming people trying to hold its center between such stylistically opposing poles.

I also hate to perpetrate the cliché of complaining that the movie isn't as good as the book, but the movie isn't as good as the book!  Given its decently long runtime of two hours, I was surprised at how much of the storyline the film flattened, simplified, changed frustratingly (why is Alistair an asshole now??), or discarded altogether.  I'm particularly surprised by the alterations made to the conflict between Rachel and Eleanor, including the odd choice to have Eleanor signal her full support of Nick and Rachel's engagement by the end of the movie when that is not remotely what happens in the first book in the series--in fact, it carries over into and drives the drama in the first part of the next installment.  With a movie version of the second book supposedly in the works (yay!), I am so perplexed as to why the filmmakers painted themselves into the odd and unnecessary corner of resolving a central and ongoing tension in the first film installment.

All that said, I am loath to overly criticize a movie that is the first modern story with an all-Asian cast in a quarter century.  The above critiques aside, this is an incredibly watchable and fun film--as evidenced by the fact that I've now watched it twice.

And about that: It was interesting to watch "Crazy Rich Asians" again and then revisit my previous rating of the film.  I at least somewhat expected that my rating would change somewhat given that I'd seen it already and would certainly experience it differently having read the book.

But just like last time, I gave the movie a 3.

And seriously, read the book!

{Heart}

I Don't Hate "The People We Hate at the Wedding"

Heyo!

Let's talk about another movie!

I had an unusual experience watching "The People We Hate at the Wedding" (2022).

At first, I was excited to watch a comedy featuring several actors I really love, including Kristen Bell and Allison Janney.

Then I watched the trailer and thought it looked basically unwatchable.  I was very disappointed.

Next, on a day when I had a strongly devil-may-care-if-I-watch-an-awful-movie moment, I started watching it.  It was hilarious.  I audibly laughed multiple times within the first 15 minutes.

I then felt guilty I was watching it without Husband, so I stopped.  (After watching a few more minutes.)

We then watched the movie together at a later date.  Even upon partially rewatching it, it was so good!  And Husband liked it too!

Then we got to the end.  As the credits rolled, Husband astutely observed, "I felt like that was a 5 until it kind of fell apart at the end?"  Which, devastatingly, is accurate.

So to back up:

• The first 85% of this movie is incredibly fun.  It's well-written and very funny. 
• The characters are well-developed and each have decently-realized backstories and character arcs.
• The performances are spot on.  Kristen Bell and Allison Janney (more favorites of the blog) absolutely deliver, as do their main castmates Ben Platt and Cynthia Addai-Robinson.
• There are also great supporting performances from Jorma Taccone, Karan Soni, Isaach De Bankolé, and Lizzy Caplan.
• This doesn't typically matter so much to me, but the soundtrack is great!
• They make fun of therapists in a way I found thoroughly entertaining and also so specific that I'm pretty much sure someone involved in writing the movie had a bad experience working in someone's lab in Pennsylvania.  While the film's portrayal of a specific type of evidence-based therapy is exaggerated for laughs to the point that it is overly disparaging and at least partially inaccurate, this is one of those rare instances where I'll let this kind of thing slide because it was genuinely hilarious.

With all this going for it, I would have almost certainly bet this movie was destined for a 5 rating.  So what happened?

My best guess is that the writers felt so much pressure to wrap up "The People We Hate at the Wedding" in a neat and tidy little bow that they forgot to who their characters really were, and were therefore unable to continue to make the movie snappy and funny.  Which is such a shame, because it is exactly the characters' messiness--the behavior and attitudes that earn them the hateration referenced in the film's title and that should have made a neat and tidy ending impossible--that positioned this movie for greatness.  

These are not people who have photogenic endings as the movie would have its audience think.  They have complicated and at times painful relationships with each other and they act that out in all sorts of counter-productive but amusing ways.  

In fact, "The People We Hate at the Wedding" is in so many ways a refreshing correction to "A Bad Moms Christmas" (2017; ironically another Kristen Bell movie) and others like it: these relationships are difficult, but the characters openly acknowledge and contend with that, sometimes through passive aggression, sometimes through overt aggression, and sometimes actually pretty effectively, assertively, and even lovingly and kindly.  It's not that they don't deserve or couldn't accomplish a happy ending together, but instead that it shouldn't have been a cutesy picture-postcard, happily-ever-after-with-no-bullshit-in-the-future ending.  It's in abandoning the healthier and more accurate narrative it started out with that "The People We Hate at the Wedding" loses its way.

 So because it's still so good but not perfect, I begrudgingly gave it a 4.

{Heart}

Peeling the "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery"

Hey team,

I mentioned earlier that I've been watching a lot of heist movies lately.  I've also been watching some heist-adjacent movies, including "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" (2022). Let's talk about it!

I went into this movie with mixed expectations.  The film's predecessor, "Knives Out" (2019) was fun in a splashy ensemble-cast-in-a-fancy-setting way, but was somewhat underwhelming.  However, I heard from a few people whose movie opinions I trust that the sequel was actually better than its forebear.  Being in a mood for a pretty but relatively low stakes movie, I went for it.

Funnily enough, as we were starting the film, I remarked to Husband that I haven't recently watched a murder mystery and tried to crack it before all the secrets are revealed at the end--I just haven't felt emotionally invested enough to put in the mental work to do my own armchair sleuthing.  Instead, I'm generally perfectly content to be carried along by the twists and turns of these movies, like I'm floating along on a pleasant cinematic lazy river, until they do that math for me.

And then!  I actually was so drawn into "Glass Onion" that I paused it multiple times to announce my theories of who dun the it, and what the it actually even was.  Because this is a truly delightful, excellent murder mystery movie!

In addition to its engagingly twisty turny plot, "Glass Onion" boasts an astonishing set (which, incidentally, could be yours for the low low price of literally $450 million), counterbalanced by an equally astonishing star-packed cast, including, of course, Daniel Craig at his Foghorn Leghorn-y best(?), Janelle Monáe, Edward Norton (a favorite of the blog), Kate Hudson, Leslie Odom Jr., Dave Bautista, and the possibly over-saturated but still very fun to watch Kathryn Hahn, as well as some extremely entertaining cameos, my favorite of which belongs to Serena Williams.

It's glitzy, it's splashy, it's escapist, and for good measure it includes a little opening to be interpreted as social commentary.  All in all, this is a fun and thoroughly entertaining movie.

I gave it a 5.

{Heart}

Antiracist Accountability: Black-Owned Bookstores Update

Hi again,

About two years ago, I wrote a post about Black-owned bookstores that featured a local bookstore I've enjoyed patronizing: Loyalty Bookstore, which is a Black-, Asian-, and Queer-owned independent bookstore in the Maryland and DC area.

Loyalty was recently targeted by hate groups while it hosted a Drag Queen Story Hour.  This seems like a great opportunity to support them as they do the excellent and critically important work of creating safe, joyful spaces for people of color, LGBTQIA+ people, and children.

You can support them from anywhere by buying merchandise through their page on bookshop.org.

You can also follow them on Instagram here, where you can learn more about their future events and see staff book recommendations.

Thank you for supporting this and other businesses trying to create light in the darkness.

{Heart}

Watching "Late Spring" in Early Spring

Good afternoon friends,

Let's talk about a movie I watched earlier this month: Yasujirō Ozu's "Late Spring" (1949).

I stumbled onto this movie and its counterparts while browsing the international and Criterion Collection selections included in HBO's streaming service.  "Late Spring" is apparently the first of three installments in Ozu's Noriko triology, which is comprised of films whose central character are all named Noriko, although they are not meant to be the same person across all three films.

The main premise of "Late Spring" is that everyone in Noriko's life is concerned that she is unmarried.  After the deprivations of World War II significantly weakened her, Noriko is now living with restored health, caring for her father, and enjoying her relationships with her friends and extended family.  She feels no sense of urgency to marry, and in fact would prefer to remain by her father's side with her life remaining as it is.

I found "Late Spring" to be intensely enjoyable and watchable.  The performances are strong, and I felt myself completely drawn into the quotidian drama of a young woman being pressured to make big decisions by everyone who cares about her, but who has her own ideas about what she wants out of life.  It was also enjoyable as a historical and cultural artifact, allowing us to see facets of everyday life in post-war Japan.

Perhaps surprisingly given this premise, in its original context of the 1940s, "Late Spring" feels like a deeply feminist movie: its primary conflict is the main character's wish for self-determination based on what gives her a sense of pleasure and fulfillment, not simply to proceed with marriage because that is what society demands of young women.  With a broad and obliging smile, she endures the remonstrations of everyone around her to marry and proceeds with her life as she sees fit.  

As the film continues, it becomes clear that that very smile is in fact one of Noriko's primary defenses against her autonomy being overridden; if she is sweet and agreeable, perhaps she will continue to skate by for another day without having to leave home committed to a stranger.  It's only later in the film, when her smiling facade begins to fall away and her face gradually reveals her inner torment, that she says out loud how deeply she does not want her life to change.

Noriko's very limited options also reveal this to be a starkly realistic feminist movie: she can either remain her father's caretaker, or she can marry.  Although she very briefly considers pursuing a career as a stenographer like her divorcée friend, it is clear that she is only considering this out of desperation when she learns her father may be remarrying and fears her own displacement and ousting from her home.  In the post-war 1940s, the options for most women were likely this narrow.  Acknowledging the claustrophobia of this narrowness is also profoundly feminist, as it forces the audience to temporarily live within the constraints it placed on women, and therefore to hope ever more fervently that Noriko at least gets some degree of agency to choose between her very limited options.

It's rare that a film makes it so clear how much society's imposition of gender roles forces people into a rigid and unnatural symbiosis comprised of preordained and limited life paths.  No matter what she chooses, Noriko is locked into a role of subservience toward men, whether she is preparing their meals, running their errands, or taking dictation, whether she is their daughter, wife, or employee.  And as Noriko's worries for her father make clear, men are locked into dependency on women's labor, utterly unable to care for themselves.  While a patriarchal society dictates that men are treated as superior and their needs are treated as paramount to the profound detriment of everyone else, "Late Spring" reveals that patriarchy nevertheless harms and limits both women and men.

Interestingly, the film thoughtfully expresses ambivalence about these dynamics.  Noriko's father talks with his friend and colleague about the futility of having a daughter--that fathers are expected to raise and care for them, only to have them leave to join their future husband's households.  The men then remark to each other that they both, of course, each married someone else's daughters, acknowledging that they are implicated in this pattern both as aggrieved parties and as beneficiaries.

It would be too simple to view Noriko's story with patronizing pity.  Yes, she has few choices, but many feminists would argue that her wish to be a caretaker for her father is equally valid to any other life pursuit so long as that is truly her wish.  As Noriko becomes a more vocal advocate for herself throughout "Late Spring", it is clear that she is not blindly pursuing the life of an obedient daughter, but instead that she sincerely finds purpose and joy in caring for her father.

Ultimately, however, society nevertheless prevails.  Noriko comes to see consenting to marry as her daughterly duty, as a way to ensure her father does not have to worry about her.  She even accuses herself of being selfish for wishing to remain by her father's side.  This moment of self-recrimination--the expression of Noriko finally internalizing and succumbing to society's pressure--stings.  While the ending with Noriko's marriage is framed positively by the film, it lands with a complexity and wistfulness that paradoxically enrich this quiet, pleasant, slice-of-life film.

I gave it a 5.

{Heart}

Personally Liking "Persona" (Again)

Hey team,

Let's get right to it!

I recently watched director Ingmar Bergman's 1966 film "Persona", and I want to tell you a little bit about it.

The film is almost exclusively comprised of the dual performance of Liv Ullman as Elisabet, an actor who is in the midst of either a psychiatric and/or an existential crisis, and Bibi Andersson as Alma, the nurse assigned to care for Elisabet as she retreats to an isolated beachfront vacation home to convalesce.  And true to Bergman form, hilarity thereafter ensues.

In contrast to the heady and at times dark content that "Persona" explores, I found welcome relief in the gorgeous, rich photography of the film.  Bergman and his team achieved beautiful, deep graduations of color and textures in this excellently-shot black-and-white movie.  There were several moments in which the beauty of the images in this movie strikingly enhance the contemplative quietude of the story's setting, acting as a visual breath of fresh air.  The deliberate intentionality and high quality of the images in "Persona" is a case study in the value of shooting with physical film.

"Persona" is also noteworthy--in the context of movies from its era in general, though probably not in the context of Bergman's work--for the respect and seriousness with which it treats the psyches of women as it plunges deep into their depths.  Reacting to Elisbet's persistent silence as a mirror that over time warps until it shatters, Alma takes a free association-style tour through massive topics in human existence.  She explores the inexorable pull she feels to autopilot through her own life.  She interprets Elisabet's wordless and complete withdrawal from the world as the product of her realization that expressing herself in any way is to lie; that speaking or interacting in the world is inherently inauthentic, performative, dishonest and self-betraying.  She imagines the existential horror of motherhood and how this may have driven Elisabet to abandon her son.  In the face of Elisabet's at first placid silence, Alma wanders deeper into her own previously-unexamined identity, experiencing ever greater confusion about where she ends and Elisabet begins.  She hallucinates, she lashes out in rage, she tearfully pleads for forgiveness and connection.

The twin performances of "Persona" expertly carry the entire film.  They are mesmerizing.  Like Alma, we are drawn to study Elisabet's face for any fleeting indication of what she is thinking or that she might finally break her silence.  Like Elisabet, we are fascinated by the whirlpool of memories and impressions that spill forth from Alma as she feels for the first time like she can speak because someone is truly listening.

What was especially striking about watching "Persona" recently was that, somewhere in the middle third of the film, I experienced a growing inkling that I'd seen this film before.  And true enough, I evidently watched--and apparently very much liked--it in 2011.  And I have to say, having now done it, the nagging sense of familiarity I derived from totally forgetting at first that I’d watched this movie over 10 years ago was an oddly appropriate mindset in which to watch this film about slowly descending into surreality and ultimately into madness. 10/10 would recommend!

I think we all know by now that I'm a sucker for Bergman, so it likely comes as no surprise that I gave "Persona" a 5 (again).

{Heart}