Crazy Rich Asians, 2018
Rachel (Constance Wu) is a university economics professor, dating the kind, charismatic Nick (Henry Golding). But it turns out that Nick is more than just a nice guy---he's part of an incredibly wealthy family, something that Rachel discovers when they travel to Singapore for the wedding of Nick's good friend. Nick's family, including his imposing mother Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh) all perceive Rachel as a gold-digger and do their best to drive a wedge between Nick and Rachel.
This was an overall very charming romantic comedy that was absolutely gorgeous to look at. While I felt that it left certain issues unresolved, it made for easy, fun viewing.
Constance Wu has good comedic and dramatic range, and she makes for a very sympathetic protagonist. Rachel is constantly provoked and criticized, even by those characters who are seemingly on her side, and she faces the challenge of being forced to decide whether to reinvent herself to please these people. Wu does a good job of portraying that tricky spot where someone is trying not to let something get to them, but only having moderate success.
Golding is fine, if maybe a bit bland, as Nick. The main flair in the film is delivered by Awkwafina, as family friend Peik Lin Goh. Michelle Yeoh is very strong as the family's icy second-in-command matriarch---the true queen bee is Lisa Lu's Ah Ma--who was once herself not considered worthy of being part of the family.
Fitting well the notion of people who have more money than they know what to do with, the settings and costumes are lush, colorful, and tailored to a T. Everything from the flowers to he furniture to the clothing to the food looks lush and lavish.
While I enjoyed the film overall, I'm not sure that it really resolved the central question that hangs over multiple characters, namely what it means to be an outsider coming up against a very wealthy, very insular group. We see this plot not only with Rachel and with Eleanor's memories, but also in a side plot about Nick's cousin, Astrid (Gemma Chan) and her husband's feelings of inferiority.
The movie sort of hand waves the issues away, but it seems really strange to me that Astrid's husband is seen to be a straighforward bad guy because of his feelings of not being enough. We have seen the way that Rachel is treated (and bullied, and harassed, etc), and I Can imagine that dynamic would put a tremendous strain on a person. Astrid's husband does have an affair, and it seems like that should have been more of the focus of Astrid's anger. And going back to the main pot, dear goodness, why would you want to be part of Nick's family?!
There's also never any kind of reckoning with the fact that the kind of wealth and excess we see in this film is pretty gross from just about any point of view: environmental, human exploitation, etc. The angle the movie takes is that Rachel would be scoring a victory to become one of these people, and I find that kind of a depressing thought.
Good times, but not a lot of depth.