Between the success of Shang-Chi & the Legend of the Ten Rings and Everything, Everywhere, All at Once it’s a great time for Asian-American cinema. The current climate is allowing a lot of new talent to rise to the surface and it’s a win for moviegoers everywhere. Adele Lim, the screenwriter for Crazy Rich Asians and Raya & the Last Dragon, has joined with writers Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao (both long-standing writers for Family Guy) to create her directorial debut. Its raunchy, fast-paced, silly comedic situations manage to be highly entertaining and cleverly pay off long after being introduced. They’re mixed with some very genuine feelings about home, belonging, family, and cultural displacement.
Audrey Sullivan (Ashley Park) is desperate to close with a Chinese client for her law firm. She is the only Asian woman in her firm, spending most of her days dealing with inadvertent racist comments from her white, male co-workers (many of which are named Michael, Brad, and Stan). Her best friend, Lolo Chen (Sherry Cola), lives in Audrey’s garage as she works towards becoming an accepted artist. The two have been together since they were six years old, brought together by the fact that Audrey’s adoptive parents (David Denman and Annie Mumolo playing the W.A.S.P.-iest couple in recent memory) noticed that a Chinese family (Debbie Fan and Kenneth Liu) new to the neighborhood also had a little girl. Audrey hasn’t told Lolo that she might be moving to L.A. as it all depends on whether or not she can close this client acquisition. The two fly to China, unwillingly joined by Lolo’s awkward cousin Deadeye (non-binary comedian Sabrina Wu), and meet up with Audrey’s college roommate, actress Kat (Stephanie Hsu), and they all attempt to help Audrey close the deal.
None of that matters as it’s all setup. The real story becomes one in which the fun, horny, and raucous girls wind up helping Audrey to see out her birth mother. Everything begins to go in every direction and it’s all a slam dunk, from injuries related to a devil’s threesome to a possible vulva tattoo and a missing condom of cocaine. Chevapravatdumrong and Hsiao have crafted a tight script that doesn’t slow down enough to let you see any cracks in the foundation until it’s ready to hit you with a genuinely emotional climax. The jokes don’t come a mile a minute as they can with many a comedy (or Marvel movie). Joy Ride never feels like it’s tossing any possible joke at the wall knowing some will stick, instead stringing together a series of visual gags, jabs at each other’s cultural integration, and outright wonderfully sex-positive cracks that make for a highly entertaining movie.
Perhaps the best performance comes from Sherry Cola. Lola Chen will be all-too-familiar to many viewers, a woman that is desperate to have her art legitimized. It’s all based around aggressively horny imagery but her sincerity is what sells it as conversational art. Shocking as a flower made of labia or a playground built of all sorts of genitals may be her real goal is to spark conversations about the joy and beauty of sex and how it enriches not only her life but the lives of others. Cola brings a warmth and charm to a character that, frankly, would not be able to fly with a male character without being creepy. Her comedic timing and absolutely wonderful physical work make for something special.
This definitely doesn’t dismiss Park, Hsu, or Wu. Deadeye’s awkward behavior comes to a head during a later conversation about belonging and real friendship while Kat’s journey toward sexual openness and honesty with her husband-to-be (a very hunky Desmond Chiam as a bible-thumping virgin that Kat cannot WAIT to fuck) is one that, sadly, felt quite familiar to me due to the environment I grew up in. Park gets the lion’s share of screentime as the lead and delivers a performance that rides a fine line between silly, sincere, sexy, and clumsy. She knocks it out of the part and her whole vibe makes for a touching character.
This won’t be for everybody. Sex-positivity is a discussion America is just scratching the surface of, with a vocal minority constantly crying out for a return to this country’s puritanical fanaticism. Lim, Chevapravatdumrong, and Hsiao have crafted a wildly raunchy comedy that I think deserves a spot in the conversation and it’ll be a hit for years to come. I absolutely adored this one and hope most of you give it a try (those of you who are afraid of sex please retire to your fainting couches).
Joy Ride is currently playing in theatres.
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