Year of Release: 2023
Director: Adele Lim
Starring: Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu, Sabrina Wu, Debbie Fan, Kenneth Liu, David Denman, Annie Mumolo, Timothy Simons, Ronny Chieng, Meredith Hagner, Baron Davis, Chris Pang, Rohain Arora, Alexander Hodge, Victor Lau, Desmond Chiam, Daniel Dae Kim, Michelle Choi-Lee, Belle Zhang, Lennon Yee
Genre: Comedy
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 6
Watch it on Amazon
Synopsis and Review
"Joy Ride" is director Adele Lim's feature directorial debut, following a considerable career as a writer and producer of projects which include tv shows such as "Private Practice" and "Life on Mars", and the script of the hit film "Crazy Rich Asians". "Joy Ride" focuses its narrative on two childhood best friends, Audrey and Lolo, both of Asian descent largely living in a mostly caucasian area. Audrey's parents adopted her from China when she was but a toddler, while Lolo's parents are from China, but had been living in California, prior to moving to Washington state with Lolo. Now full grown up adults, Audrey is a successful lawyer, who has a chance to finish an important deal with a Chinese client, and make partners on the firm where she currently works (a firm that is ferociously racist but whose senior partners try to say otherwise). Lolo in the meantime has been trying to make it as an artist, by making adult themed art that hasn't had much traction. She's been living with Audrey. Anxious to close the deal with the client, Audrey volunteers to go to China, stating she's fluent in the language (she's not), and taking Lolo with her as a backup translator. They are joined by Lolo's cousin, Deadeye, whom Audrey has a weird relationship with. All three of them meet with Kat in China, Audrey's college best friend, who is now a well known actress, who has also volunteered to act as a translator. Lolo in the meantime has planned out a situation for Audrey to possibly meet with her birth mother, who gave her away for adoption. As a result of a requirement of the deal, they all set forth on the journey to meet Audrey's birth mother, only to be met with more unexpected events and adventures.
"Joy Ride" is for the most part a breezy film that surprises for its ability to capture the friendship and complicity between these characters in a way that feels very authentic. The bond between Audrey and Lolo in particular feels well illustrated, and those characters are immediately understandable, even if limitedly expanded upon (the same going for Deadeye and Kat). The situations that the co-writer/director illustrates are indeed hilarious and over the top, which keeps the narrative engaging. This momentum manages to keep the film always arresting, until there's a tonal shift into something more sentimental in the third chapter, which takes away both the crackling satire and even the rhythm the film had built thus far. There's a noticeable pattern in comedies, where there's a point in the narrative where there's an attempt to further humanize the main characters, after the author(s) spent two thirds of the script describing them as nothing more than an archetype. These attempts are sadly misguided, even if well meaning, and never really add anything substantial to the character or the narrative at that point (maybe build better characters to begin with). That is to say, the third chapter of "Joy Ride" while positioning itself as the emotional epiphany for the central characters, the tonal shift that it imparts is abrupt and it literally deflates the journey the characters have gone on (not to mention the humor almost entirely evaporates). It's an unfortunate misstep, since the film manages to be hilarious, rude and crude, and up until that third chapter, never dull. The cast is solid, in particular Sherry Cola and Stephanie Hsu, who have a ton of charisma and comic timing. The production team is equally solid, including Nathan Matthew David's score and Paul Yee's cinematography. It's an entertaining even if slightly unbalanced feature debut for Adele Lim.
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