The Farewell

Available on Amazon Prime Video.

Written and directed by Lulu Wang, The Farewell is based on her own true family story of a now, widespread, Chinese family who choose to keep from the family head, Nai Nai, her cancer diagnosis. Her dire prognosis leads them to create a “fake” wedding to provide an excuse for the them to come together to say their final farewells.

What Wang gives us is a gentle tale of the importance of family, how we can often take it for granted and assume it will be always be there, until we realise it won’t. It also shows us the complexity of life, the lies we tell to protect others and often ourselves from some of the realities with which we live.

There’s a real simplicity to the story, focussed on a family and its challenges, insecurities and jealousies. One thing that really stuck with me was how the story was just about that, not about a chinese family, but one that could’ve been any family from any part of the world, striving to do their best and deal with the tragedy of seeing someone for the final time.

There’s nice performances throughout and while Awkwafina got many plaudits for her performance as Billi, it was Shuzhen Zhao who steals the show as Nai Nai, the widely loved and respected matriarch, as she perfectly captures what we’d expect from any loving mother and grandmother who wants to share her wisdom to ensure others are happy and live the best lives they can.

While it didn’t always work for me as occasionally its structure seemed a little messy, its a minor quibble for a film that is full of love, warmth humour and scattered with lovely understated but hugely relatable performances.