July 21, 2023
Audrey Sullivan (Ashley Park) was adopted as a child from China by a loving white couple from Seattle. She had always been an achiever at school and was now a successful lawyer. Her best friend since childhood best friend was Lolo Chen (Sherry Cola), whom she met on a playground when they just moved in. Lolo grew up to be a bit of a slacker who would rather spend her time creating naughty art work.
One day, Audrey was sent to Beijing to close an important deal with a Chinese businessman Chao (Ronnie Chien) in order to make partner at her firm. Tagging along with her on this trip were Lolo and her socially-inept cousin nicknamed Deadeye (Sabrina Wu). In Beijing, Audrey met up with her college best friend Kat (Stephanie Hsu), now a popular actress in TV dramas. Lolo and Kat did not hit it off very well when they first met.
Asians female actors and raunchy comedy is certainly not a combination anyone would think of for a Hollywood film. Yet here we have four young Asian-American actresses going all out in foul-mouthed, naughty gags. At first, you'd think it would only go as far as dirty language. But everything got more physical at the hotel with the basketball players, reaching a climax during that scandalous dance at the airport. So shocking yet oddly liberating at the same time.
Ashley Park has a thriving career on Broadway musicals (Tony-nominated for "Mean Girls") before she ventured into TV ("Emily in Paris", "Beef") and now film. Stephanie Hsu is fresh from an Oscar-nominated role in last year's best picture "Everything Everywhere All at Once." Sherry Cola and Sabrina Wu started off their careers doing stand-up comedy and this is their breakthrough film. Some comedy parts were rough, but generally quite entertaining.
It is remarkable that the creators of this film were all Asian women as well. The script was written by Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao, both of whom had written for "Family Guy." The director is Adele Lim, a Malaysian screenwriter most noted for writing the screen adaptation of "Crazy Rich Asians" (2018). "Joy Ride" marks her directorial debut, and she was able to tell and balance the cringe-y raunch with a palpable heart.
Above all the shenanigans, "Joy Ride" is about a child who grew up in another country with a different culture discovering her roots in her motherland. In this light, it shares the spirit of "The Farewell" (Lulu Wang, 2019) about a girl who migrated to the US as a child reconnecting with her family back in China. In contrast to the loud, over-the-top comedy elsewhere in the film, Director Lim and lead Park handled this drama with subtlety, and it stuck its landing. 8/10.
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