Lulu Wang’s The Farewell, according to its opening titles, is “based on an actual lie.” Billi’s Nai Nai (grandmother) has been diagnosed with Stage Four lung cancer, but the rest of Billi’s family has chosen to hide this diagnosis from Nai Nai. They tell Nai Nai that her x-rays came back to show only “benign shadows,” and, under the pretense of a rushed wedding between Billi’s cousin and his girlfriend, they orchestrate one last family gathering in order to pay their respects and say goodbye to the family matriarch.
Billi, who was raised in the United States away from her Chinese extended family, cannot fathom the family’s decision to deceive her beloved grandmother. The film makes careful study of Billi’s face as she trails her grandmother through wedding preparations. She is torn between her desire to tell her grandmother the truth and her need to keep her family’s secret, to help them shoulder the burden they do not want Nai Nai to have to bear. As it follows the family throughout their farewell disguised as a celebration, the film grows into a delicate portrait of the tensions between the traditions of Billi’s home culture (China) and the attitudes of her adopted country (the USA). The Farewell demonstrates that love, while universal, can be demonstrated in myriad rich ways. From truth-telling to hiding a potentially devastating diagnosis, Billi’s family’s actions exist on a broad spectrum, all of them conflicting, but none of them truly contradicting each other, because they all come from a place of love and respect.
– Sarah Welch-Larson
- Directed by: Lulu Wang
- Produced by:
- Written by: Lulu Wang
- Music by: Alex Weston
- Cinematography by: Anna Franquesa Solano
- Editing by:
- Release Date: 2019
- Running Time: 100
- Language: Chinese, English
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2019 Top 10 — #6