“Be good, my child.”

From The Farewell.

As a young child, Billi (Awkwafina) and her parents (Diana Lin and Tzi Ma) left China and moved to the United States, leaving most of their extended family behind.  Now 25 years later, Billi is a struggling writer in New York City just trying to get by when her parents inform her that her grandmother Nai Nai (Zhao Shuzhen) has been diagnosed with stage four cancer and not given long to live.  Billi’s immediate reaction is to call her grandmother, but her parents quickly inform her Nai Nai has not and will not be told of the terminal diagnosis as per traditional Chinese culture.  Instead the many members of the family will be returning to China to see Nai Nai under the false pretense of Billi’s cousin (Han Chen) getting married.  Desperate to see her grandma before it’s too late and conflicted with the desire to tell her the truth, Billi decides to scrape up all the money she can and join her family in China and try to get them to tell Nai Nai the truth.  When she arrives, Billi is not only greeted by Nai Nai, but also her great aunt (Lu Hong), her cousin’s fiancée (Aoi Mizuhara), her uncle (Jiang Yongbo) and several other family members.  The entire family struggles with what to tell Nai Nai, but none so much as Billi as she accompanies Nai Nai and her other family members to a wide variety of wedding preparations, events, and locations all while everyone tries to keep Nai Nai from finding out the truth about her health.

Partially inspired by true events from the director’s life, this movie uses the realistic elements to create a funny, sweet, and captivating movie.  While a major portion of the film is spoken in English, there is also a heavy presence of Mandarin dialog and English subtitles.  Awkwafina plays her role perfectly, bridging the gap between the Chinese traditions of her family and the freedom of her American culture.  The Farewell is a must-see movie that brilliantly highlights that often-difficult choices and sacrifices that family requires.

| Rated: PG | Running Time: 98 minutes |Genre: drama/comedy/biography |

||Family Viewing||Cursing: 1 of 10|Nudity: 0 of 10|Sexuality: 0 of 10|Gore: 0 of 10

|AVAILABLE FOR HOME VIEWING|