I watched John M. Chu’s Crazy Rich Asians in a packed Dublin cinema, a scene that must be pretty common as it soars towards blockbuster financial success. It has certainly been one of the hits of 2018, hailed as reinvigorating the romantic comedy. The rom-com is a genre that has been much maligned in recent years. Its death had been foretold, and a slew of very bad offerings only confirmed the casualty. And yet, so far this year, we’ve already had the word-of-mouth hit Set it Up; 2018 has been kind to the genre. Hopefully, at least, we’re moving past the trend of rom-coms which were downright insulting to women, a pretty depressing state of affairs considering women had typically been the core audience for these offerings. Diane Negra, Professor of Film Studies at University College Dublin, has spoken about the male-centric gross-out rom-coms such as Knocked Up, which went after the male market. Katherine Heigl even commented on the gender dynamics of that particular film, noting that only the men got to be funny. She’s not wrong. Knocked Up was a huge success, but it’s a very particular view of modern womanhood. And there are much worse offenders… I viscerally remember watching What’s Your Number? a few years ago, a film with Anna Faris and Chris Evans that pivots around a hypothetical Cosmo quiz that tells women they won’t find their true love beyond a certain number of sexual partners. It’s hard to appeal to women when you’re relying on such hoary myths (indeed).

Crazy Rich Asians clearly isn’t perfect. It’s unfair to laud any film as the second coming of a genre. But it is refreshing, it’s a charming  ‘fish out of water’ comedy, scored with a backing track of Chinese covers of popular English-language hits. It’s fun, and it has heart.

It’s also deliciously bold, garish, and vulgar. The ‘fish out of water’ comedy is two-fold – cultural and financial. The film is brightly-coloured, and captivates the eye. Singapore looks stunning; contributing to the colour palette, the shots of the city portray it as lush and verdant. It’s a very different urban animal from the romantic comedies of New York and its ilk to which we’ve become accustomed. Incidentally, when it’s not a city I’m already familiar with, like New York, the product placement of destination seems so much more obvious. Parts felt like glossy advertisements for the Singapore tourism board. The Marina Bay Sands for one seemed a little too prominent in the shots. Doubtless it is quite a sight, but it was rather omnipresent (in a way, I suppose, that the classic New York City landmarks are also omnipresent in such films).

But perhaps the focus on this exclusive hotel makes sense. High gloss is a theme of the film. The plot deals with the lives of ridiculously wealthy people. These characters are dealing with true obscenities of riches. It’s a central irony of the story that mantras of living your destiny and individualism are pedalled for characters that live beyond the imaginations of most. Astrid (Gemma Chan) is subtly oppressed by the lower social status and financial standing of her husband. She purchases extravagant luxuries only to hide them from his judgement. Her eventual resolution of this issue rests entirely on her ability and freedom to make her own choices, freedom derived from her considerable fortune. It’s very much a message of individualism devoid of much sense of the choices or otherwise of the less privileged.

The plot of the film follows the relationship between Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) and Nick Young (Henry Golding). Rachel is the interloper in this world of plenty. An NYU professor of modest origins, albeit now clearly making her way. It is her romance with Nick that forms the nucleus of the movie and sets the action in motion. They are a slightly bland couple, but likeable with it. Both are good eggs, and they’re navigating a web of evil intentions.

Michelle Yeoh (as Nick’s mother Eleanor) is electric. She has a taut, wary and hunted look. Hunted and yet predatory herself, eyes trained on the newly present threat of Rachel, an inappropriate romantic pick for the scion of a Singapore dynasty. Compounding her more lowly origins, Rachel is also Chinese-American, and therefore culturally mismatched. Yeoh was magnetic when on-screen – it’s been a good year for her (and us) as we got to see her stride into Star Trek lore as Captain Philippa Georgiou in the new Star Trek Discovery.

Awkwafina, too, is a joy to watch. She brought an injection of energy to Oceans 8 albeit in a very small role. In Crazy Rich Asians, she got belly laughs in the cinema, her comedic chops are spot on. The Cinderella montage with her and her family (including turns from Ken Jeong) is supremely entertaining.

It’s also very much the case that the huge success of Crazy Rich Asians has offered an alternative vista of what leading men and women could look like. The film is cast with Asian American and Asian actors. Here’s hoping its financial and critical success ushers in greater imagination when casting our cinematic protagonists.

The experience of Crazy Rich Asians was entirely fulfilling. It offered me an enjoyable escape, dripping with vulgarity and big laughs, a good script and some great performances. Kevin Kwan wrote the book on which the film was based. In fact, he wrote three of them, and a sequel is already in the works… so here’s hoping we get the whole trilogy.

FUN, FUN, FUN. Is it a stunning accomplishment in the great catalogue of film-making? No, of course not. But is is a very welcome and enjoyable romantic comedy which showcases what casting diversity should do.

3/5