Despite my enjoyment of the Joy Ride trailer, I was prepared to be underwhelmed by the movie. There was enough good word about it to make it something I wanted to prioritise, but I worried that I might have already been made aware of all the best bits. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case.
Ashley Park plays Audrey, a young woman with a successful career who is tasked with heading to China to complete a major business deal. Although everyone assumes that Audrey should have no problems in China, due to her being Asian, the fact that she was adopted at a very young age means that she isn’t necessarily well-equipped for the trip. As she doesn’t speak any form of the language, she heads there with her best friend, Lolo (Sherry Cola). Lolo ends up bringing along her awkward, K-pop-loving cousin, “Deadeye” (Sabrina Wu), and Audrey turns the trio into a quartet when she connects with another friend, Kat (Stephanie Hsu). Kat is a successful actress, having made her reputation as a wholesome and virginal “good girl”, despite some very raunchy episodes in her past. The business deal is the focus, but Lolo also tries to convince Audrey to seek out her birth mother.
Directed by Adele Lim (who helped to write a little film you may have heard of called Crazy Rich Asians), this is an enjoyably bawdy comedy that also manages to insert some interesting commentary and genuinely moving moments without everything feeling forced. There are at least a few big laughs, one gag prompting me to laugh louder than I have in the cinema in years, and plenty of dialogue and moments that manage to both entertain and allow viewers to consider the way society treats race, gender, sex, and family.
The screenplay, written by Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao (neither of whom have the biggest body of work, but both seem to have worked together well on the TV show “Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens”), fleshes out an idea that Lim helped to create, and uses a familiar comedy feature template to give equal time and space to each of the four main characters. Although a lot of the beats are fairly familiar and predictable, there are enough little moments that stray from the formula to make this feel a bit more special than other films in the genre. It would have been very easy just to make this into another Bridesmaids with some different wardrobe choices throughout, but it manages to avoid feeling too indebted to that film, despite it being the closest cinematic touchstone.
Park is a good lead, able to play the “straight” acting more than the others, but certainly not without the ability to play into the comedy, but kudos to her for often just being present in scenes where the others shine. Cola, Wu, and Hsu get the majority of the laughs, with each one seemingly dealing with their own hang-ups as the fun trip that was planned starts to turn into one mishap after another. Or perhaps the hang-ups belong to other people, and those other people should just let people be their natural selves. Ronny Chieng has a fun few minutes of screentime, and there are sweet, and all-too-brief, moments for Daniel Dae Kim and Michelle Choi-Lee.
No matter who you are, if you have ever wrestled with your own identity (in terms of your family tree, in terms of your sexuality, in terms of a fandom you are part of, in any way) then I recommend Joy Ride. It has plenty of food for though, some big laughs, and a big heart. It could have been trimmed slightly, there could have been a few more jokes dotted throughout, but it’s a fun time that should have you smiling broadly as the end credits roll.
8/10
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