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The Farewell, directed by Lulu Wang and starring Awkwafina, is one of the biggest indie films of this year. With a 14.5 million USD box office holding, it “surpassed ‘Avengers: Endgame’ For Biggest Theater Average of the Year” according to Variety. Not only was the film a huge success in its initial release, but The Farewell holds its place as one of the more notable feature films that highlights Chinese culture and philosophies, as does the film The Nightingale, one of China’s recent Academy Awards submissions for Best Foreign Language Film through a candid and comedic human interest storyline.
In The Farewell, the entertainer Awkwafina has evolved from a rapper in Queens, NY to an Indie movie darling. Not only was she praised for her execution of her film role, she has also become an icon of Asian representation in mass media and the film industry. The Farewell, which stars Awkafina, has gained a huge spotlight as it is her follow up role to the huge hit Crazy Rich Asians, released in 2018. The Farewell, produced with a large Asian cast like Crazy Rich Asians, was highly anticipated by the Asian-American community.
In this heartwarming tale based on an actual real life event, second-generation Chinese-American Billi (Awkwafina) learns about her family tradition of telling white lies about upcoming deaths of family members. When Billi’s beloved grandmother Nai-Nai (Zhao Shuzhen) is discovered by doctors to have only a few weeks left to live, the whole family gathers under the lighthearted and joyful veil of an (unexpected) wedding of one of the family members for the sake of Nai-Nai. When Billi crosses this rough road filled with family expectations and traditions, she learns that there is a lot to be thankful for, be happy about, and celebrate. She revists her childhood in her old country, revitalizes her strong family bonds, and rediscovers Nai-Nai’s quirky and sensenational persona.
The beauty of The Farewell film is its portrayal of family bonds under a literally unspoken tragedy in a heartwarming and uplifting light. The Farewell is definitely not your typical film that is geared towards American audiences as it adopts Asian backgrounds, cultures, and and has a good amount of subtitles. Some might even say that The Farewell is too much of a foreign film for them, as it is mostly in Mandarian with English subtitles and some English speaking parts; nonetheless, it reveals what it is to be a family under a universal light. Through The Farewell, film director Lulu Wang has woven a string of Chinese traditions with an intricate story of reborn family connections and ties.
