Money Can't Buy Me Love

Movies: Crazy Rich Asians

I saw Jon M. Chu's Crazy Rich Asians with a friend who recently read the book and assured me "the book is better", so this review is not a referendum on the novel (which I haven't read). Just FYI.

There are two awesome things about Crazy Rich Asians. One is Awkwafina's performance as Peik Lin Goh, the main character's eccentric friend from college who steals the show. The other is the fact that this is the first Hollywood movie with an all-Asian cast since, I shit you not, 1993's The Joy Luck Club. And what a cast it is! Michelle Yeoh, Constance Wu...hell, even Ken Jeong has a memorable supporting role.

But to be honest, the movie itself is below this talented cast. It nearly buckles under the weight of its own pat sentimentality and rom-com cliches.

Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) is a an incredibly successful woman: an economics professor, she is the youngest faculty member at NYU. She has a close relationship with her mom, who raised her on her own. She also has a ridic hot boyfriend, Nick Young (Henry Golding) who has just asked her to travel with him to Singapore to attend his best friend's wedding. But what Rachel finds out as she and Nick are led to their private suite on the transatlantic flight is that Nick's family is rich...crazy rich.

No, like, you don't get it. CRAZY RICH. Like, these people wipe their asses with 20 dollars bills. And Nick is the golden son: heir to his family's fortune and essentially royalty in Singapore.

You might ask yourself, "wow, isn't that kind of shitty for Nick not to tell Rachel this? Like, possibly a relationship-ending offense?" and you'd be right! But then we wouldn't have the movie, right? And also, we wouldn't be able to enjoy the mildly jolty ride towards the obvious and not very realistic conclusion that love is more important than money.

Rachel has every right to be a little mad that Nick didn't tell her the reality of his family ahead of time, mainly because his mother hates her right off the bat. Michelle Yeoh is awesome as Nick's classy, cold mother who "would do anything for her son" as long as she gets to control his life. Eleanor Young is pissed that Nick has spent so much time in the States when he's promised to move back and learn the family business. Now that he's fallen in love with a scrappy Chinese-American, she fears (rightfully) that he might never move back.

Rachel also gets guff from Nick's ex, Amanda, and some miscellaneous cousins who call her a gold-digging bitch...even though she didn't even know about Nick's family's wealth. Ugh, money really does ruin everything, doesn't it?

There are some nice family members too--Cousin Oliver who is the gay "rainbow sheep of the family", Cousin Astrid whose wealth and beauty doesn't stop her husband from cheating on her, and many others, but the film doesn't really give us time to get to know these interesting characters--instead, it gives us a makeover sequence, a bachelorette/bachelor party sequence, and the actual wedding scene which, ugh, reminded me why I don't like weddings.

I really did not like the barrage of romantic comedy tropes here. The overwhelming soundtrack that tells you exactly how to feel with its swelling violins. The groomsman who tells the groom that he hopes his bride won't "take his balls" (UGH). There's even a AIRPLANE PROPOSAL. A proposal. That takes place. On an airplane. It's the biggest cliche of all rom-com cliches, and it's done without a hint of irony.

Also irony-free is the materialism porn in the movie. Look, I get that the film is called Crazy Rich Asians, but the movie just does not let up with the mansion porn and designer clothes porn and that wedding-industrial complex porn...holy shit. And it would have been ok if the plot itself had been a little meatier, but it wasn't. What's more, the film suggests that as long as one's heart is in the right place, wealth doesn't matter. But I don't agree--the level of wealth presented in the film is...well, it's inherently unethical, and there's not even a small attempt to pay lip service to the fact that many people in China live in outrageous poverty. Here's a story about people who live in "Coffin Homes" in Hong Kong.

I really struggled with this movie because I wanted to like it so bad, but it was so cliched and shallow. From what my friend told me, the book is far less cliched (no airplane proposal, for example) and spends more time with the individual family members, thus giving more depth and context to this insanely wealthy family. Crazy Rich Asians has been getting really good reviews and I'm glad that a Hollywood film with an Asian cast is making bank. If you love romantic comedies, by all means please check this film out. But from what I've heard, it sounds like the book is miles better than the film.

Grade: C+ 

Undercover Brother

Movies: BlackKklansman

Ok, first of all I have to confess that I have not seen as many Spike Lee films as I should have. A million years ago, I watched Do The Right Thing and I am way overdue for a re-watch. I saw Bamboozled (super underrated, btw) in college and Inside Man randomly with my parents. And of course, I saw BlackKklansman which I'm about the review here. So I feel like I want to make some assumptions about Spike Lee's work but can't because I'm a Spike Lee novice and I need to remedy that.

Anyhoo. BlackKklansman is the true story of Ron Stallworth, the first Black police detective in Colorado Spring, Colorado. The year is 1972 (however, the events that inspired the movie actually took place in 1979), so the country is smack in the middle of the Black Power movement. Ron is hardly a radical, but when he goes undercover see Kwame Ture (previously Stokely Carmichael, who changed his name after traveling to Africa) speak at a rally, he finds himself very attracted to Ture's message of not playing nice with the white establishment.

A while later, Ron (played beautifully by John David Washington) sees an ad in the local newspaper for the Ku Klux Klan. He calls the line and pretends to be a racist white person. After some convincing, his boss allows him and his white colleague Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver, excellent as always) to infiltrate the local Klan. Ron will connect with them over the phone and Flip will play Ron for in-person visits with Klan members. Ultimately, this puts Ron in the path of none other than David Duke (Topher Grace, who looks disturbingly similar to young David Duke)--the "Grand Wizard" of the KKK himself.

BlackKklansman is surprisingly fun and funny for a story of horrific racism. Lee makes sure to mock the Klan for the bigoted fools they are and to show how Ron used their own ignorance and assumptions against them. For example, there's a great scene where Ron is talking to Duke on the phone and Duke says that he always knows when he's talking to a Black person because of their voices and, specifically, the way they pronounce "our". BlackKklansman should be noted as the second great film of the summer to use the concept of a "white voice" as a pivotal plot point. Lee walks a fine line between giving the audience plenty to laugh at while also reminding them that the KKK has and continues to commit acts of violence and brutality.

In fact, the greatest weakness of the film is that it is a bit on the nose in how it ties the racism of the 1970s to the racism of the past few years, with David Duke making pointed comments about hoping America will be restored to its previous "greatness" and Ron laughing at the idea of a guy like David Duke ever being elected president. Har har. That said, Lee's use of footage from the "Unite the Right" Rally in Charlottesville last summer and his dedication of the film to Heather Heyer still feels like a gut-punch. As much time as we spend laughing at the racist hicks in the film, we are forced to reckon with the fact that these same hicks are responsible for not just Heyer's murder, but the murder of thousands of Black people throughout the 20th century. There is a scene where an older gentleman describes the brutal castration and lynching of a developmentally disabled Black man in the 1920s who was accused of raping a white woman. The most disturbing part of this scene is knowing that this same violence still happens today and that we're NOT better than or beyond the racist brutality of post-Civil War America, or 1920s America, or 1960s America. Basically, different decade, same bullshit.

BlackKklansman also wades into some discussion about whether Black people can disrupt racism from within racist systems. Ron's girlfriend, Patrice, is the head of the black student union and believes that the police are inherently racist. Ron disagrees and argues that a Black cop could change things from the inside. The best part of Patrice and Ron's ongoing discussion? The fact that it isn't resolved by the end of the film--the two continue to disagree (respectfully) until the end. I liked that because there was no easy answer then and there is no easy answer today.

Although I liked Do The Right Thing and Bamboozled more, BlackKklansman is worth the watch. It isn't perfect, but it's thought-provoking and entertaining. It's not particularly interested in exploring the inherent humanity of racists and bigots, the way some movies that tread similar ground do, and while I love me some deep explorations of the nature of evil, it's kind of a relief to just make fun of these assholes for once.

Grade: B-