Joy
Ride (2023)
7/10
Starring
Ashley
Park
Sherry
Cola
Stephanie
Hsu
Sabrina
Wu
Directed
by Adele Lim
Coming
from a guy, I liked the way this film handled women and sexuality. I loved the
way it handled the character development of each of the four ladies and the way
it always finds a way to pull a rabbit out of a hat, occasionally when you
think you have guessed how things were going to turn out.
This
is a good film, and it deserves more publicity for the way it was written and
the way it was directed by directorial debut Adele Lim.
It
is easy to step into a cinema and expect to see b-film level acting and writing
when you go see a movie about women going on a trip. It is a regular serving from
Hollywood, so you can practically guess some of the things that will happen in
the film. These things are regular with trip films and happened in this one too.
There
is always the overly serious, who along with their friends go on a trip. Ours
in this movie is Aubery (an Asian adopted by white parents as a child) who
needs to visit China on a business trip but does not speak any Chinese. Aubery
childhood friend Lolo grew up with her Chinese family and speaks Chinese, so she
will tag along with Aubery to translate for her. Aubery has a friend from Uni
who stays in China and works as an actress her name is Kat, they were going to
meet up when she lands in China. The last but not the least, is Deadeye, Lolo’s
cousin.
As
you would expect, according to the road trip formula something went wrong, and
they lost their passports because of it. Then they get some luck, and this is
where the film took a strong sexual detour. Which also adds to their mess and
after some more bad luck, their friendship gets caught in the mix.
The
movie stayed through to the formula so no surprises there when these things
happen, but the path it took to getting from point A of the start of the trip
to their bad luck at Point B, and all the other points before we get to the
ending with the apology was funny and occasionally surprising.
Good
film and one that will not waste your time. The ladies did a great job in their
roles, and even though the movie was not a run away box-office hit, if any
movie deserves going for another run at a trip, this one does more than the
rest we have seen attempt it.
0 comments:
Post a Comment