Review of Crazy Rich Asians (2018) by Compi24 — 20 Aug 2018

Fans of the romantic comedy genre may find and build a home within the charms and appeals of "Crazy Rich Asians." I, however, cannot seem to look past the fact that many of those "charms" and "appeals" are beats and tropes recycled from countless other films with similar premises.

It's "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" meets "The Princess Diaries." It's "The Prince & Me" meets "Notting Hill." It's so many elements from so many other similar films thrown together to little effect.

From the "plainful" character work, to the mediocre-at-best comedic notes, there's not much for me to chew on in this. Even the importance of the film's casting is undercut by the fact that the movie isn't necessarily saying anything specific about Asian culture at all.

In fact, you could insert any ethnic group within the film's title and still convey the same message - that marrying up in class is a difficult thing to do sociologically. A "Crazy Rich Middle-Easterners" that takes place in Dubai.

A "Crazy Rich Indians" that takes place in Delhi. A "Crazy Rich Latinos" that takes place in Rio. Any of them could work. Why was "Get Out" so effective at what it set out to do? Because it was so specific in what it was trying to say.

You cannot feasibly swap out races of characters in that movie without sacrificing the thematic matters at hand (race relations between black and white people in America). And though, again, the casting within this film is an important step forward for Hollywood, I find it hard to believe that it was of that much importance to the people behind it, when the most specific thing we see relative to the Chinese experience is just one scene of characters folding dumplings in between attending Western-friendly parties where they happen to be blasting covers of American pop songs over the loudspeakers.

It's not a particularly bad or offensive film at all. It's just simply plain. Very plain. And it doesn't even scrape against the boundaries of the romantic comedy genre in the ways that it should (i.e.

in a narrative, character, or thematic way).