While the studio comedy seems to be dying out, this summer we have two potential saviors of the genre. No Hard Feelings with Jennifer Lawrence seems to be a goofy throwback to the sex comedies of the mid-aughts (hopefully I’ll get to see it soon!), while the subject of this review, Joy Ride, is more of an Asian-American twist on Eurotrip or The Hangover. Enthusiastically crass and raunchy, screenwriter Adele Lim’s directorial debut is a breezy summer comedy that remembers these things should have actual jokes. With Everything Everywhere All at Once as an unbelievable Oscar success starring Michelle Yeoh only months ago, Joy Ride feels like another step in the right direction towards shattering any expectations of what an Asian-American film “should be.” Why can’t a story of adoption, Asian identity, and strained friendships also contain an enormous amount of cocaine and sex? Who doesn’t want to hear Stephanie Hsu blather about pretending to be Christian for her Chinese fiancé while missing dick so much she’s sweating?
Audrey (Ashley Park) and Lolo (Sherry Cola) have been best friends since childhood, partially because they were the only Chinese kids in town, but mostly because they’re always supporting each other and having fun. Audrey is a grindset lawyer hoping for a big promotion, while Lolo is a visual artist with a real flair for genitalia-based sculpture. Audrey, who is adopted, will be visiting China for the first time in order to land a client, but Lolo thinks it could be great for her to finally meet her birth mother. Audrey is more hesitant but eventually gives in, and the search for her birth mother begins. Along for the ride are Lolo’s BTS-obsessed cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu) and Audrey’s college roommate and Chinese drama superstar Kat (Stephanie Hsu, fresh off her Oscar nom for EEAAO). Tensions flare as Lolo fears her friendship with Ashley is threatened by Kat, while Audrey can’t help but act American and a little bigoted towards Chinese culture. Will the girls find Audrey’s mother or end up lost in the Chinese countryside?
I always fear that big films starring non-white people will fall prey to defensiveness, trying to prove something that doesn’t need to be proven– sort of a Dear White People situation, where a film seems to exist in order to combat stereotypes that could just be ignored. Mercifully, Joy Ride has no time for white expectations for the “model minority,” as it literally starts with young Lolo punching a white kid in the face. With that taken care of, we can get great jokes about Lolo’s nai-nai being “Chinese-Chinese,” Audrey’s inability to tell Asian people apart, inter-Asian biases, and a drug sequence that isn’t a cliche psychedelic freakout. These girls can handle their coke! To an extent. The friendship between Audrey and Lolo is the emotional core, though there is plenty of drama to be mined from the truth behind Audrey’s birth mother’s reason to give her up.
Though the pacing gets a little loose in the back half, Joy Ride is overall a brisk comedy with unapologetically silly setpieces and a refreshing attitude towards race we’ve started losing in studio films that get blander by the second. It’s obviously not this simple, but let’s say it: just make the movie and worry about the “backlash” when you’re dead!
Joy Ride
2023
Dir. Adele Lim
94 min
In theaters everywhere Fri 7/7
