As of the moment as an Instagram feed, Crazy Rich Asians revisits Jane Austen’s timeless universal truth about a man in possession of a fortune being in want of a wife. The man in question is Nick Young (Henry Golding), the exquisitely eligible scion of a Singapore real estate family. The scale of his fortune is suggested by the first scene, in which his mother, insulted by the manager of a fancy London hotel, buys it out from under him.
There’s no doubt in Nick’s mind about whom he wants to marry: Rachel Chu (Constance Wu), an economics professor at NYU originally from Queens. She and Nick, who have been together for a year, are clearly a perfect match. At least in Manhattan. But when they travel back to Singapore for a wedding, Rachel finds herself subjected to the disapproving scrutiny of the older generation and vicious sniping from potential rivals.
Every romantic comedy depends on obstacles to the central couple’s ultimate happiness. Crazy Rich Asians, a busy, fizzy movie winnowed from Kevin Kwan’s sprawling, dishy novel, sets up a series of clashes — between tradition and individualism, between the heart’s desire and familial duty, between insane wealth and prudent upward mobility — that are resolved with more laughter than tears. There are squalls of intrigue and a melodramatic cloudburst or two, but nothing that threatens to spoil the festivities.
The venue is fabulous — if there is any part of Singapore that is less than dazzlingly picturesque, we don’t see it here — the music is great, and the food includes homemade dumplings, street-stall delicacies and lavish banquet dishes. But the key to this party is surely the guest list. It has been noted that this is the first Hollywood movie in a long time with a mostly Asian and Asian-American cast, and if anything this observation understates the diversity of the performers onscreen, in terms of both their origins and their pop-cultural affiliations. They include Michelle Yeoh, one of the great international movie stars of the past quarter-century; Ken Jeong, a staple of naughty American comedy for almost as long; and Awkwafina, a hip-hop artist, actress and web celebrity of more recent vintage.
That’s only a small sampling. Kwan’s book, a best-seller that has spawned two sequels since it was published in 2013, runs to more than 500 pages and includes footnotes, genealogical charts and a telephone directory’s worth of names. Its digressions and tangents would easily fill up a television season or two, and the movie, directed by Jon M. Chu, can feel a bit rushed and cramped. There’s too much and also not enough.
Still, it’s hard not to have fun, though not always for poor Rachel. After a pleasant excursion with the soon-to-be newlyweds, Nick’s boyhood friend Colin (Chris Pang) and his fiancee, Araminta (Sonoya Mizuno), the family drama and the peripheral silliness kick into high gear. Rachel meets an ex-girlfriend of Nick’s, Amanda (Jing Lusi), who is less of an ally than she seems. More simpatico is Astrid (Gemma Chan), Nick’s ultraglamorous cousin, whose marital troubles provide the most developed secondary plot. Her husband, Michael (Pierre Png), is, like Rachel, an outsider; his insecurity about his wife’s money and status turns their marriage into a potential cautionary tale.
A more serious intimation of trouble arrives every time Nick’s mother, Eleanor (Yeoh), looks in Rachel’s direction. (His father is away on a business trip.) Her judgement seems severe and unfair, but she also possesses an undeniable grandeur, a seriousness about family, power and her own identity that is noble as well as cruel. While there is never any real doubt that Crazy Rich Asians will come down on the side of free choice and true love, it does pay lip service to the gravity and durability of other values.
Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time. It is an unabashed celebration of luxury and money, with hints of class conflict that have more to do with aspiration than envy or anger, set in an Asia miraculously free of history or politics. Comic relief is provided by Peik Lin Goh (Awkwafina), Rachel’s nutty friend, and her nutty parents (Jeong and Koh Chieng Mun), whose nouveau riche tackiness stands in contrast to the aristocratic hauteur of the Young family. Not everyone in that clan is as regal as Eleanor or as blandly agreeable as her son. There are a gaggle of funny aunties and a witty gay cousin (Nico Santos), who is no less amusing for being a rather tiresome stereotype.
You could also view that character as a self-conscious throwback — part of the film’s sly and appealing old-fashionedness. Without betraying any overt nostalgia, Crazy Rich Asians casts a fond eye backward as well as eastward, conjuring a world defined by hierarchies and prescribed roles in a way that evokes classic novels and films. Its keenest romantic impulse has less to do with Nick and Rachel’s rather pedestrian love story than with the allure of endless luxury and dynastic authority. Which I guess is pretty modern after all.
