lulu wang – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

EXPATS – Review by Susan Granger

February 14, 2024February 17, 2024 Susan Granger Expats, Ji-young Yoo, lulu wang, nicole kidman, Sarayu Blue, The Expatriates

Set in the summer/fall of 2014, Expats follows three expat American women: Margaret Woo (Nicole Kidman), Hilary Starr (Sarayu Blue) and Mercy Kim (Ji-young Yoo) whose lives become inexorably interconnected through trauma and tragedy. Beijing-born director Lulu Wang led an all-female writers’ room, interweaving and detailing each woman’s melodramatic anguish as she unburdens herself, delving deeply into family dynamics as she reveals her loneliness and shameful secrets. Clarifying the context and complexity of class division, Wang notes that wealthy, upwardly mobile expats live extravagant, privileged lives, sheltered from the impact of political changes in Hong Kong – but they are not immune to tragedy.

Reviews

THE FAREWELL – Review by Brandy McDonnell

August 20, 2019 Brandy McDonnell 0 Comments awkwafina, lulu wang, sundance film festival, the farewell

One of the best movies of the year, it heralds another new phase in the rapidly morphing career of Awkwafina, the rapper who broke out as a comedic actor in last year’s blockbuster “Crazy Rich Asians” and warrants awards consideration for her finely nuanced lead turn in “The Farewell.”

Reviews

THE FAREWELL – Review by Susan Granger

August 7, 2019August 11, 2019 Susan Granger 0 Comments awkwafina, Chinese films, lulu wang, the farewell, Zhao Shuzhen

Written and directed by Lulu Wang, based on her own experiences, this intergenerational-bonding comic drama revolves around a Chinese-American artist, Billi (Awkwafina), living in Brooklyn, who returns to her hometown in northeastern China when she learns that her adored Nai-Nai – grandmother in Mandarin- has Stage IV lung cancer.

Reviews

THE FAREWELL – Review by Martha K Baker

July 27, 2019October 12, 2023 Martha K. Baker (Archived Contributor) 0 Comments awkwafina, lulu wang, the farewell

The story is based, not on a true story, but on a true lie. Billi, a woman of Chinese extraction lives in America, but part of her heart remains with her grandmother, her Nai Nai, in China. When she learns that Nai Nai has been diagnosed with cancer and, further, that the family is gathering for a wedding as a ruse to say good-bye to the matriarch, she stubbornly insists on joining.

Interviews

Lulu Wang on THE FAREWELL, Immigrants and Traditional Cultures – Nell Minow interviews

July 15, 2019October 12, 2023 Nell Minow 0 Comments lulu wang, the farewell

Lulu Wang lets the audience know right away that her new film, The Farewell, is “based on an actual lie.” Awkwafina plays a character based on Wang herself, the daughter of Chinese immigrants to the US. The story is about what happened when Wang’s grandmother, still in China, was diagnosed with a terminal illness. The practice in China is to tell family members, but not the patient. In an interview, Wang talked about the inevitable conflicts between immigrants and their American-raised children and about deciding when to lie and when she’d like to be lied to.

Interviews

Lulu Wang on THE FAREWELL, Love and Her Grandmother – Sarah Knight Adamson interviews

July 11, 2019July 13, 2019 Sarah Knight Adamson 0 Comments awkwafina, lulu wang, the farewell

Lulu Wang speaks about the special bond Wang shares with her grandmother and some of the qualities that she most admires in her grandmother. “My grandmother is an incredibly strong person, she actually joined the Army at age 14 as a way to escape an arranged marriage, and that speaks a lot to who she is as a person. She’s a very willful person, and she’s the one who really holds the entire family together. We’ve always had a special relationship because I’ve always been told that I take after her,” says Wang.