Crazy Rich Asians is the first Hollywood studio movie to feature an all-Asian cast since The Joy Luck Club nearly 25 years ago. However, that’s not the only thing that it is doing after nearly that long. Despite being groundbreaking for its cast and subject matter, it also throws back to an age of Hollywood when romantic comedies were flashy, a little corny, but grounded by its characters.
What’s so refreshing about the characters in Crazy Rich Asians is they are archetypes we’ve seen before, but because they’re pulled from different experiences they feel fresh. The perfect example is the protagonist, Rachel (Constance Wu). She was raised by a single mother who immigrated from China to the US to give her daughter a better life. That experience is something that has shaped Rachel and who she is today. As a first-generation Asian-American, even the mention of that backstory was a watershed moment for me.
Rachel, an economics professor at New York University, is dating fellow professor Nick Young (a ridiculously charming Henry Golding). Nick asks Rachel to accompany him back home to Singapore to attend—and be the Best Man— at his best friend Colin (Chris Pang) and his fiance Araminta’s (Sonoya Mizuno) wedding. What he failed to tell Rachel is that he is the heir to his family’s massive Singaporean real estate developer fortune and they are—well, crazy rich.
In a subversion of many other romantic comedies—where Asian characters are often put into stereotypes or shown simply in the background of a date set at a Chinese restaurant—American Rachel is the outsider. Not quite Asian enough to be a part of the Young family’s world. It’s especially apparent as Nick introduces her to his mother Eleanor (a deliciously devious Michelle Yeoh), his grandmother Shang Su Yi (Lisa Lu), a parade of Aunties, and countless young eligible bachelorettes that despise Rachel.
While there are people on her side like Araminta and Nick’s sister Astrid (Gemma Chan), who is having troubles of her own, it seems that almost everyone is weary of Rachel. At one point while at Araminta’s bachelorette party Rachel finds a dead and gutted fish on her bed with the message “catch this you gold digging bitch” on the wall. Yeah, these crazy rich Asians don’t play. And while a moment like that is shocking and the way she’s treated by Eleanor—most of which consists of icy stares and cool takedowns—and others could be over-the-top, it’s all told in a fun way. Crazy Rich Asians is essentially—and I say this in the best way possible—a soap opera.
However, there is a lot of heart, as well. A large part of that heart comes from Rachel’s Singaporean college friend Goh Peik Lin (Awkwafina is hilarious and used perfectly) and her family (Ken Jeong and Koh Chieng Mun to name a few actors) who are all hilarious and Rachel’s mother Kerry (Tan Kheng Hua).
And while Rachel tries her best to win over Nick’s family—they’re constantly trying to convince him that Rachel doesn’t belong among them—she eventually learns that to beat them she has to join them. She returns Eleanor’s icy stares and cold takedowns and stunts on the other jealous girls at the wedding. The movie is tightly plotted and almost all of it is about relationships and communication—both spoken and unspoken.
The importance of diversity and telling a wide array of stories in Hollywood becomes so apparent in a movie like Crazy Rich Asians. While the story and movie have mass appeal, it’s the small moments and gestures that make it clear that this is made for an Asian audience—crazy rich and regular alike. One of the moments—one of many that I smiled at simply because I recognized it from my own life—is a tense Mahjong game that also doubles oddly as a negotiation. And while the game furthers the story, what was more emotional was watching something that was such a large part of my childhood being reflected on screen.
Fireworks, private island resorts, lavish balls, one of the most entertaining things about Crazy Rich Asians is how crazy rich the characters are. However, the most fascinating thing about the movie is how much it’s about the things that connect us as Asians—and not just culture. I think the expectations of Asian parents and their desire for their kids to be as happy and successful in life sometimes cause rifts in our relationships with our parents. That’s one part of what Crazy Rich Asians is about. The other part is about how our parents always have our best interests at heart—whether it’s Rachel’s mom’s decision to bring her to American or Nick’s mom’s desire for him to take over the family business. No offense to rom-coms in the past, but this is much more interesting than a straight-forward love story. Crazy Rich Asians is a step forward for representation, but also a step forward for an entire genre.
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