Movie Review: Crazy Rich Asians Katie Vaughn

It looks like Mr. Darcy’s gotten a serious upgrade. Hold on to your hat, Mrs. Bennet, because this one’s not just £10,000 a year rich—he’s crazy rich.

In Jon M. Chu’s 2018 film adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s best-selling novel Crazy Rich

Asians, audiences can indulge once again in the classic tale we never seem tire of: an absurdly wealthy bachelor falling hopelessly in love with a whip-smart, though markedly less wealthy woman. Despite the plot’s timeless roots, Kwan’s array of storylines takes sharp turns down thrilling, shocking, and downright hilarious paths—a few of which Chu manages to bring to the screen with both pizazz and finesse.

The film opens with Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) teaching Game Theory at NYU, her subtle confidence hinting that she’s strategic, she’s intelligent, and she’s not one to back down from a challenge. All the better for her boyfriend and fellow professor Nicholas

Young (Henry Golding), who’s hiding a bit of a secret—he’s not just a handsome academic, he’s the heir to an utterly massive property fortune in Singapore. It’s not until

Rachel agrees to accompany her billionaire-in-disguise lover to a wedding that she realizes that the game she’s suddenly been thrust into might take more persistence than she bargained for.

Crazy Rich Asians’ star-studded cast doesn’t only bring long-awaited Asian representation to the big screen; it also brings a wealth of talent. Constance Wu plays a relatable, down to earth Rachel, and Henry Golding brings the handsome—though often clueless—Nick to life through boyish smiles and innocent surprise at the conflict between his crazy rich family and crazy overwhelmed girlfriend. Michelle Yeoh, for that matter, gives us an ice-cold Eleanor Young whose sleek French twists and measured expressions would send any girl with less nerve than Rachel running to catch the next flight back to

New York. Are the shades of Pemberly to be thus polluted? Not so easily on Yeoh’s watch.

Chu breaks the film’s tensest moments with laughter-inducing performances by

Awkwafina, who takes on the role of Peik Lin, Rachel’s best friend and confidante. A delightful blend of sincerity, absurdity, and humor, Awkwafina makes the film worthy of its Rom-Com genre. Her comedic talents also mitigate the louder, in-your-face style of

Ken Jeong, who plays Peik Lin’s father, Wye Mun Goh. While the tackiness of his character mirrors his home’s interior décor—inspired by Donald Trump’s bathroom, as

Peik Lin lets us know—many of Jeong’s lines leave you cringing rather than laughing.

While this first installment of Crazy Rich Asians does fall short of capturing all the complexities of Kwan’s novel—a feat that would, admittedly, be near impossible in the length of a movie—it succeeds in bringing opulence, wealth and power dynamics, and deliciously dramatic family tension to the screen. Chu produces a visual feast in his shots of Singapore’s most luxurious locations and residents, and viewers can’t help but feel a little like Rachel Chu, staring wide-eyed at the splendor. Bursting with laughs, drama, and romance from the opening scene to the credits, the next chapter of the Crazy Rich

Asians franchise can’t come soon enough.