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HomeFilmJoy Ride – A Review

Joy Ride – A Review

A joy ride, by definition, is a journey taken for pleasure, which describes the titular film well. Okay, sure, it’s a ride taken for pleasure in a stolen vehicle, but unfortunately, that still kind of works. There are few mid-budget studio movies made nowadays. Of those, few are R-rated comedies, fewer still center women, and even fewer WOC. So, for Joy Ride to center female and non-binary Asian characters, it feels like someone secreted it out for a joy ride. Expect they didn’t, it was really made, and in theaters right now.

Joy Ride is the directorial debut of Adele Lim, who is a personal hero of mine for her decision to walk away from co-writing on Crazy Rich Asians 2 after they reportedly would only pay her about a tenth of what they were willing to pay white male co-writer, saying it was all because of his experience as a feature writer, discounting the writing she’d done in TV and that the pair had co-written the previous film together. Since exiting CRA2, Adele Lim has written Raya and the Last Dragon and come up with the story for Joy Ride along with Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao, both making their feature writing debut after writing for multiple comedy series.

First, let’s talk about the R-rating. It was often explicit and sometimes raunchy, but I never felt it went for the gross-out humour. My abdominals engaged, but only in laughter. I like banter, and there was a lot of it in the film. It also has probably the funniest sex montage sequence I’ve seen, complete with a K-pop dance-off. I could explain how that fits in, but it’s better if you see it.

At the heart of the film, it is about the characters, their friendships, with each character going on their own journey of self-discovery. The character who really stood out for me was Deadeye (played by Sabrina Wu). Their pure desire to just have friends, real friends, filled me with the most warmth. I was obsessed with Sabrina Wu by the end, the only member of the core four whom I went into the film unfamiliar with, but they are someone I will be looking out for now.

In one of the trailers for the film, you’ll see a taste of the film’s version of WAP, but the entire performance is something else. In the number, you see the full Broadway backgrounds of Ashley Park (who plays Audrey) and Stephanie Hsu (who plays Kat) on display.

The core four is rounded out by Sherry Cola (who plays Lolo), who also stars in Shortcomings, which comes out at the beginning of August. As Lolo, she plays an artist who creates sexually liberated art. Which, and I could be wrong in remembering because I was laughing at the time, but that did lead me to question her reaction to the reveal of Kat’s tattoo, specifically during the POV shot. But in a 90-minute movie with a lot of dialogue, and four characters each going on their own journey, for me to only have one moment wondering if something was a little out-of-character, especially in a comedy where I find character gets sacrificed for a bit more often than I’d like, this is a pretty good batting average.

Loose Thought: Canadians from Vancouver can play the age-old game of “Oh, look at what city we’re playing now,” multiple times while watching Joy Ride.

 

 

 

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