The Farewell (2019)

The 2019 indie dramedy feels like an outlier in this week's list, but rest assured it makes perfect sense.

The film in many ways feels like the arrival of a great auteur in LuLu Wang and is the perfect mix of style and substance. It’s a festival darling turned mainstream and has a lot to say about the culture it is representing, unlike A Clockwork Orange and Reservoir Dogs, though it has the power of empathy on its side.

Much of this is due to it being not exactly a true story, but certainly a lived experience.

The film follows Billie (played brilliantly by the incredible Awkwafina) and her family as they lie to keep the matriarch of the family, Billie’s grandmother, in the dark about her cancer diagnosis.

It is greatly influenced by Wang’s own life experience of hiding this fact from her own grandmother. Just so you don’t have to sit through this review wondering why we would tell such a heartbreaking story without giving you any resolution, LuLu's grandmother beat cancer in 2013.

She’s still with us and was not even made aware of the lie until 2020 when she finally saw the film!

It is really quite incredible to listen to LuLu Wang talk about the conviction she had when making this film.

The process of getting this made was a long and tumultuous road that led her to come very close to quitting the industry all together.

As she was questioning her next steps in life and career, she went on Ira Glass’ ‘This American Life’ and told her story. Immediately, producers and studios started calling trying to acquire the rights to it.

But Wang knew what movie she wanted to make. She wasn’t looking for the easy path. She didn’t want to make Christmas with The Kranks, she wanted to tell an intimate story, her story.

She linked up with writer, director, and producer Chris Weitz who is no stranger to the studio system (he directed the prestigious films American Pie, About a Boy, and Twilight: New Moon).

She was upfront with Weitz about what she wanted and, more importantly, what she didn’t want, saying:

“Let me just tell you straight up that it is going to be Chinese-language, it’s going to be cast entirely Asian and Asian American, and she will not have a white boyfriend.”

Even after the movie wrapped and was screening at festivals, Wang fought for what she believed was important to the film. She sold the film to A24 for $7million, turning down an eight figure deal with a streamer because it was important to her that it got a theatrical release instead of getting lost in the endless Netflix scroll.

And she got what she wanted! She provided a true representation of Chinese culture on the big screen.

It’s kind of incredible that we are able to fill up an entire week of films just talking about the power of walking.

A walk can express so many emotions. Whether it’s feeling on top of the world or pure menace through cinematic tactics, we are able to say so much.

Today we are talking about melancholy.

The shot of the family walking is saying so much all at once. By having them walk together it shows the unit, the family, “winning” as a team.

The con paid off, but with that music it’s a question of at what cost?

In China, hoverboards are a very common part of a film set, even being included in crew packages along with lighting and stands. All of the tracking shots and steady cams were achieved using hoverboards.

Even when she got back to the States, LuLu Wang started incorporating them in the post-production process using it to go from room to room in the editing bay

Guess Tomorrow’s Film