The Farewell Archives - Silver Screen Riot

*The following interview contains spoilers for the movie ‘The Farewell’, as it is based on the real life story of Lulu Wang and, in a suiting intersection between art and artist, to speak about one is to speak about the other.

The single thought I had exiting A24’s The Farewell, a semi-autobiographical drama about writer-director Lulu Wang’s family’s choice to keep the family matriarch in the dark about her terminal cancer diagnosis, was “What does Nai Nai think of all this?” Wang’s film, a certifiable critical darling and indie box office stunner, reveals in the closing moments that, despite doctoral pessimism, her grandma is still alive and kicking today. The real shocker though came when Wang admitted that even though her Nai Nai is still with us, she still is completely in the dark when it comes to her health. Despite that fact that she visited the very film set where her granddaughter was making a movie about the whole, deeply personal experience. Read More

Ignorance is power in A24’s celebrated Sundance hit The Farewell. The film follows Awkwafina’s Chinese family who, scattered across the globe, assemble when news breaks of the family matriarch’s terminal cancer diagnosis. The skinny is no one has told said matriarch, the family cooking up a ruse to keep that treasured info from her in increasingly heartbreaking and comical ways. The film from Lulu Wang is a rare family film that genuinely speaks to the deep, historied, and complicated bonds that tie while remaining thematically viable and content appropriate for practically all ages. Wang’s is a deeply felt and emotionally sincere film that benefits from its serio-comic nature, if not one that left me entirely moved. (B+) Read More