Last year I read the New York Time’s best selling novel Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan. After reading the first chapter, I was invested in Rachel Chu’s and Nick Young’s relationship and needed to find out what happened next. The story was a perfect mix of Pride and Prejudice meets The Great Gatsby with an Asian twist. A few weeks later, and halfway through the second book, I was thrilled to find out a movie was in the works. So about a year later, my mom and I sat in the top row at my local movie theater with a bag of Twizzlers waiting for our favorite characters to come to life on the big screen. We happily waited through thirty minutes of movie trailers, discussing parts of the book we hoped to see. We laughed, I cried, and we wanted more. Jon M. Chu’s screen adaptation cleverly portrayed the charming characters from Kwan’s book.
Constance Wu stars as Rachel Chu, a laid back economics professor at NYU and long time girlfriend of sweet and suave Nick Young (Henry Golding). Rachel agrees to go to Singapore with Nick for his best friend’s wedding and to meet his family. Rachel is excited and nervous about meeting them, especially this mother and grandmother. Expecting that as a Chinese American, she can fit in with the Chinese Singaporeans, Rachel discovers her boyfriend is from one of Singapore’s most wealthy families. She finds herself being watched by everyone, former girlfriends, jealous gossips, and Nick’s mother who all try to make her feel she doesn’t belong with Nick. But with the help of her old college friend, Peik Lin (Awkwafina) and Nick’s cousins Astrid (Gemma Chan) and Oliver (Nico Santos), she takes on the crazy rich Asians.
Crazy Rich Asians is a cinematic milestone for Hollywood- the first romantic comedy with an all Asian cast. The last movie with an all Asian cast was The Joy Luck Club which came out 25 years ago in 1993. Crazy Rich Asians is full of hilarious actors like Constance Wu (Fresh Off the Boat) as Rachel Chu, Awkwafina (Dude) as Goh Peik Lin, and Ken Jeong (The Hangover Trilogy) as Goh Wye Mun. The former Bond girl Michelle Yeoh is the elegant and uptight Eleanor Young mother to Nick Young. Henry Golding is the dashing heartthrob Nick Young (who you can see again in A Simple Favor, starring Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick, expected to be released this September 14th.) Understandably, a few things from the book didn’t make it into the movie, but Chu’s screen adaptation is a modern cinematic masterpiece.
With Love from the East Coast,
Elaine