As much as this is a love story, “Crazy Rich Asians” is very much about powerful women at its center. We catch a glimpse of some of the anti-Asian discrimination Eleanor faced back when Nick was a child, and how she wields wealth like a weapon against enemies and intruders.
And the Crazy Rich Asians here do have a superpower, the same superpower as Bruce Wayne: they are crazy rich! There’s a cheerful honesty in the title.
Initially the film is jolly and sweet, with jokes that raise a smile if not an out-loud laugh, but it gets more charming and funnier as the characters bed in and their real insecurities beneath their expensive surface start to show through.
The film makes sure every extravagant detail pops, and some will probably dismiss this as an orgy for shopaholics, consigned to being a guilty pleasure at best.
The filmmakers stir occasional bursts of raucous humor into the mix, primarily via Peik Lin's family or Bernard (Jimmy O. Yang), an obnoxious overgrown frat boy who takes charge of Colin's lavish bachelor weekend.
And this is one massive ensemble she’s working with, so much so that it can be tough to keep the characters straight. Money may be the surface distraction here, but the true theme is family — and what it means to Asian culture in particular.
Crazy Rich Asians is a groundbreaker for lots of reasons, but having a woman at its center who grows and becomes stronger without compromising her own moral center in the midst of unimaginable glamour is one of them.
Crazy Rich Asians isn’t really about crazy rich Asians anyway, so much as one American who gains a greater appreciation of where she comes from. It’s a great romance, but it’s most powerful as a story of her love with herself.
At the heart of Crazy Rich Asians lies an important lesson about passing down traditions from one generation to the next, and in a sense, Jon M. Chu is doing this with the rom-com genre. S
Crazy Rich Asians is essentially an updated version of that beloved fairy tale. Only this time around, it's the heroine who doesn't know the identity of the man she's fallen in love with, instead of the other way around.
Crazy Rich Asians is a romantic comedy that makes audiences laugh out loud and root for its leads while also feeling new and presenting larger motifs about representation and familial expectations.
Crazy Rich Asians is packed with oversize characters (and one too many pointless side plots), but it’s really a love triangle about moms. Once that’s made all too clear, it’s hard to get too excited about another opulent shindig, but Chu sends us out with one anyway, just making sure that we get several glasses of bubbly to wash down all that immigrant talk.
