Category: Reviews – New Releases/Festivals

** ½ (out of 4)

Lulu Wang’s The Farewell tells the story of what its opening title card calls an “actual lie.” The protagonist, a Chinese-American woman named Billi (Awkwafina), learns at the film’s start that “Nai Nai” (Zhao Shuzhen), her paternal grandmother, has terminal cancer. In a decision that leaves Billi shocked and angry, however, Billi’s relatives decide that it’d be better to conceal this diagnosis from Nai Nai – and to create an excuse for everyone to see Nai Nai one last time, they hastily arrange a wedding in Nai Nai’s hometown between one of Billi’s cousins (Chen Han) and his Japanese girlfriend (Aoi Mizuhara).