Review of The Farewell (2019) by Kirollos-Noah — 16 Nov 2019

"Based on an actual lie" that quote is capable of making lots of people on board from the very beginning of this film!

The Farewell is written and directed by Lulu Wang, and starring Shuzhen Zhao, Awkwafina and X Mayo.

The film follows a Chinese family who, when they discover their beloved Grandmother has only a short while left to live, decide to keep her in the dark and schedule an impromptu wedding to gather before she passes. Billi, feeling like a fish out of water in her home country, struggles with the family's decision to hide the truth from her grandmother.

I wasn't so excited to see The Farewell, I haven't even seen the trailer, but I saw Blu-Ray preview and I thought that this might actually be a good movie, and it was! The Farewell is such a great, beautiful and sweet movie, and what makes this movie really works that it doesn't focus on the farewell only, but it discuses some other cultural themes, and that what makes this movie really works, that it has so many other things to do besides it's main storyline.

The Farewell is beautifully shot, Wang did a great job with this movie, MOST of the movie was shot flawlessly! Each scene was combined with amazing soundtrack, and that made this movie so saddening sometimes, and I guess that was the message from this movie, to discuss a true tradition that Chinese people used/or use to do, and it gets to your heart so quickly, because you kinda feel for them, and Wang directed this movie in a way that will make feel for them so quickly.

You'll find yourself crying at least once during this movie, no matter how tough you're, it's hard not to cry throughout this movie, part of it because of the amazing OST and Wang's amazing long scenes and build up, but most of it because of the acting; everyone in this movie did an amazing job, there're no exception, because everyone did his role perfectly, and they showed emotions like if it was a real life documentary, their acting didn't feel like acting, it was so real and that's why it was so heart-touching!

This movie is not only sad, it was funny from time to time, and that gave the movie an even more realistic theme, because life isn't always sad, even in their situation they found a way to add some laughs, and that worked very well, because a movie like this needs a little bit of a positive energy to move forward, Wand understood that perfectly, and she made a great combination between real-life cultural themes, with some slight humor.

This movie isn't just about the Chinese culture, it's not just relatable to the Chinese people only, though it does that for the most part of this movie, but it also did a great job comparing the Chinese culture to our American culture, it was only shown in a couple of scenes only, but I'm so glad that they did that! Also the movie has some relatable themes, either you are Chinese, or American.. or whatever your nationality is, the movie has something else than those themes too, and I won't spoil it for you, because it wasn't shown in any of the trailers, but what I would say about it is "Home is where the heart is", people who watched this movie will get what I mean, and the movie discusses THAT in a great way, deep and emotional!

The movie's not flawless by any means, don't get me wrong, it's not a perfect movie or anything, we'll get to that in a minute, but a movie like that isn't easy to hate, that's what I would say, so before I get into flaws, if you haven't seen The Farewell go check it out, it definitely worth a look.

When it comes to flaws I think this movie has some dull scenes, for instance there's a scene where Billi and her uncle were walking down the street and he was telling what she should do and what she shouldn't do, and went telling her the same things over and over again, I don't know if it was meant to be funny or not, but it was kinda long.

There's also a scene where the main family was playing games at a wedding, it was also long, and unnecessary... Some other scenes were like this, long and unnecessary scenes, though the movie is 98 minutes only, there're some scenes that could have been cut from the movie, and they're not few for a 98 minutes movie!

The build-up of this movie was well-crafted, the first and the third act were amazingly crafted, but the second act kinda drag a little, it took a few turns that only made the movie longer, and some scenes dull, not the whole act though, but some of it made some unexpected choices.

The Farewell is an amazing movie, well-acted, well-crafted and beautifully shot, it's one of the most memorable movies of 2019, though it's kinda not so rewatchable.

I'm gonna give The Farewell a B+!

Go see movies like this, it's really good to see people making these movie in 2019, instead of all those CGI-filled movies, this movie definitely deserves a look.