They wanted it to be my big, fat Chinese wedding, said Wang of the investors on both sides of the world. [11] However, she added that her main source of inspiration came from "spending time with Lulu's family at their home in Changchun, during pre-production. The night it aired, Wangs friend took her to a sushi bar to celebrate. Family members who had not all been in the same place for 25 years would be together again. [13][14] It was released in the United States on July 12, 2019. So I feel like in a way, I now have an adult relationship with China, with the city.". THE FAREWELL director Lulu Wang tells the harrowing tale about how she kept the content of her film about her grandmother a secret from her grandmother while. 'Don't Tell Her') is a 2019 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Lulu Wang.It stars Awkwafina, Tzi Ma, Diana Lin, and Zhao Shuzhen.The film follows a Chinese American family who, upon learning their grandmother has only a short while left to live, decide not to tell her and schedule a family gathering before she . I do think that when you hear Chinese family drama-comedy, you immediately get a sense of what that is supposed to be, she says. -People. A24. Moderated by Silvia Bizio. The coda tacks a little bit of joy onto the narrative: Wang's Nai Nai is still alive and still doesn't know that she was ever supposedly dying. Can you spoil The Farewell? To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. The Chinese also believe that mental and emotional health are directly linked to physical health. She really became all our grandmas. 15 years later, Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Emma Stone, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bill Hader, and more remember making their seminal teen comedy. "[32][33], Former United States President Barack Obama named The Farewell amongst his favorite films and television series of 2019 in an annual list released on December 29, 2019. Hong became the de facto authority for her fellow performers on whether the interactions of the screen family felt like the real thing; she and Shuzhen began hanging out together off-set a lot and, according to Lulu, started calling each other sister. The director had made good on the promise to shoot The Farewell in her still-living grandmothers hometown of Chungchun, ensuring that a high level of authenticity would be built in to the story. Oh, she already wants to see it, says Wang. Released in July, The Farewell centers on a family telling a big lie in order to keep an even bigger secret. Her family threw a fake wedding for her cousin from Japan and her grandmother didnt know. Making of 'The Farewell': How Lulu Wang Captured Grief and Love With a 'The Farewell' Breakout Zhao Shuzhen Anchors Lulu Wang's Memoir Film Wang's own "Nai Nai," or grandmother in Chinese, was diagnosed with cancer and her family decided to keep the diagnosis from her. "[31] Hong Kong playwright Jingan Young commented on the film's depiction of the differences between western and Chinese family values, claiming that "the familys decision to tell a 'good lie' is a metaphor for the collective delusion of living under the Chinese Communist party. Lulu Wang on Twitter Zhao Shuzhen plays Nai Nai, the 'Farewell' character everyone loves "[The studios] wanted it all in English, or as a very broad comedy," she told the Seattle Times. Things that we don't see. Its a decision that both upset the American-raised Wang (who wanted to tell her), but also fascinated her, inspiring her to write and direct The Farewell, a bittersweet comedy drama thats in the process of becoming a genuine break-out hit after racking up higher per-screen averages than Avengers Endgame when it went on limited release in the US this summer. "You heard the gasp.". [28] Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair wrote, "Wang movingly tells not just a story about the negotiations of familial love, but also of the immigrant experience, of revisiting one's homeland to, in some senses, say goodbye to it. They just want to put me in this box, andunless I can do this kind of storytelling, its not worth it for me to do all that.. And thats not the story I want to tell or the movie I want to make. Is that the question? I just didnt know what the tone would be until later.. Things went smoothly as they made the festival circuit, because "it's an American festival, so it's never going to leave the country, and your grandma doesn't go on the internet, she doesn't read English, so it's fine.". When filmmaker Lulu Wang decided to make a feature about the strange turn of events that followed her beloved grandmothers cancer diagnosis, though, she faced a more unusual challenge: how to make a movie based on an actual lie. "It went into this whole conversation where I was like, 'Yeah, [in China] I had my grandma and then my other grandma and uncles. Then she made a movie about it' so it went through the entire history of our family, and my grandma read it. Lulu Wang's new film -- one of the best of the year -- is based on her own family's story, an "actual lie," as the opening suggests. With Shuzhen Zhao, Awkwafina, X Mayo, Hong Lu. It's true that doctors often break bad news to members of the family instead of the patients themselves. It is ironic that films only get made now if they exist in another medium, added Weitz. The Farewell: Directed by Lulu Wang. The episode also gave her the high card and the courage to ask for everything she wanted. When they were filming Awkwafinas tearful farewell to her screen grandmother, the real grandmother came up to her after an emotional take and kept inquiring, Whats wrong, why are you crying? The star had to bite her tongue. Well, she remembers telling him, there was this one thing about my grandmother. That direct connection. "I imagine once the movie comes out, she will have to find some kind of way to still put up this front. Why isnt your protagonist the bride in the wedding? Shes like, Well just tell her that movies are fiction and none of it actually happened. If someone tells you theres this crazy set up where you cant tell your grandma and theres a wedding, you expect there will be a moment of reconciliation and catharsis the things that you see in the movies. Dramatic Competition section at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival[4] and was theatrically released in the United States on July 12, 2019, by A24. All rights reserved. We want to hear it. is nai nai from the farewell still alive My great-aunt is here [in New York] for the premiere today, so I was asking her what we should do. Then a funny thing happened. She knew she had a film in the personal tale of her Chinese familys quest to keep her aging grandmother in the dark about her cancer diagnosis. [13] In January 2019, A24 acquired worldwide distribution rights to the film for $7 million, over Netflix, Amazon Studios, and Fox Searchlight Pictures. And its very traumatic that its coming out in China. The Farewell, Wangs dramedy about her experience, turns her misadventure into a funny, bittersweet story about a Chinese-American woman named Billi (Crazy Rich Asians Awkwafina) caught between maintaining a shiny, happy deception and the painful process of saying goodbye to a loved one. The Farewell opens with a title card declaring that the film is "based on an actual lie" from director Lulu Wang's own life. "I'm saying it now, getting really emotional. Speaking about the inspiration of The Farewell, Wang said her own struggle in balancing American and Chinese culture led her to make the film. And I said my brother went through that. On the other side of the world, birds scatter from a tree near Nai Nai's apartment complex. She knew it was about the family that was obvious. That was they wanted out of this, she admits. Excerpt from the Golden Globe Foreign-Language Film Symposium presented by the American Cinematheque and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association on Saturday, January 4, 2020 at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Scene Stealer: The True Lies of Elisabeth Finch, Part 2. Maybe she could get it published in The New Yorker, she thought. Nai Nai is, instead, falsely told that her recent doctor visits have only revealed benign findings. ' Wang admits, referring to her stars famous, foulmouthed YouTube rap. [19] It continued to expand in the following weeks, making $2.4 million from 426 theaters and then $2.2 million from 705 theaters. 'The Farewell's' Lulu Wang and Awkwafina want you to cry, then call "There's a spiritual connection or energetic -- spiritual maybe sounds too whoop-dee-doo. "Most families in China would choose not to tell her," explains a doctor in the film. The family, however, told Nai Nai that she was just fine, that the doctor had given her a clean bill of health. "They wanted it to be my big, fat Chinese wedding," says Wang of her Sundance smash The Farewell, starring Awkwafina. ", Writer/Director Lulu Wang says that the character Billi (played by Crazy Rich Asians' Awkwafina) is only semi-autobiographical. This is sort of true. Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. 'The Farewell' Makes the Asian American Immigrant Experience Feel Universal, also told IndieWire in a separate interview. Lulu learned five years ago that her grandmother, her father's mother or, in Chinese, her Nai Nai had stage-four lung cancer; the doctor said she had three months left to live. But at the same time, when I talked to her like we might shoot in a neighboring town she was like, 'What the hell, you're going to come back in town and shoot a movie and not even do it here? Little Nainai is certain her big sister is still alive because of her decision to lie to her, because we gave Nainai joy instead of . Then she made a movie about it so it went through the entire history of our family, and my grandma read it. Yeah, its great that you have this premise and that the grandmother is dying. A very broad, ethnic comedy.. Billi admits that she wants to stay in Changchun to spend more time with Nai Nai, but Nai Nai declines, telling her that she needs to live her own life. She wrote and directed the new film "The Farewell," which is based on her experience after her Chinese grandmother was diagnosed with stage 4 lung . 585: In Defense of Ignorance - This American Life Id also come to accept that it wasnt my decision; it was my familys decision. Theres just one tiny bit of information shes not getting. On the first day of shooting, Nai Nai wanted to bless the set, causing Lulu to run around and confiscate dozens of crew shirts bearing the productions Nai Nai LLC logo. The Farewell (2019) - IMDb Wang, who was born in Beijing but emigrated to the United States with her parents when she was six, says that she had never heard of withholding a prognosis from a family member. Wang's crew would even stop in her grandmother's apartment for bathroom breaks while scouting locations around the neighborhood. She says she had many disheartening encounters with American and Chinese financiers who wanted to include a "prominent white character into the narrative, and punch up the nuanced drama to turn it into a broad comedy. In 'The Farewell,' The Bad News Bearers Keep A Secret. Lulu Wang's Nai Nai was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in 2013. "[30] Brian Lowry of CNN.com described it as a "small, melancholy movie that explores cultural differences and dealing with death in an utterly charming, understated manner. Sitting on the floor, Billi shares the isolation she felt when her parents left the rest of their family to move to America. Maybe I was hoping for that to make the story more interesting, but I never got that. When it came time to cast her parents, Wang chose Chinese-Australian actress Diana Lin to play her fictional mother and Hong Kong-born Tzi Ma, a prolific character actor whos worked on everything from Rush Hour to Arrival, L.A. Law to Silicon Valley episodes, to play her dad. Yes. Matt Singer Published: July 19, 2019. However, Wang's father believes that he knew he was dying. I knew right away I wanted to do it as a movie, says Wang, over the phone from her home in Los Angeles ahead of the films Scottish premiere at this years Glasgow Youth Film Festival. They had all their friends over talking about literature and movies and culture and drinking and smoking, and Im a kid and I would wake up in the middle of the night and they would be like, 'come join us,' and there was just a sense of community and family and friends, and it all made sense. At the 77th Golden Globe Awards the film was nominated for two awards including Best Foreign Language Film, with Awkwafina winning for Best Actress Musical or Comedy. Then Lum sent back a tape. Throughout the trip, however, she clashes with the rest of the family over their deliberate dishonesty towards her grandmother. The family got a second opinion, and then a third. No. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Now The Farewellis opening in theaters around the country and Nai Nai is still, happily, aliveand well, now in her mid-80s. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Ad Choices. You dont really have any agency. It's a family drama centering on a young Chinese . And then we went to America and it was just the three of us," she says. Even as Im going through all of this shock and the sorrow, the grief and confusion, the writer-director says, recalling the visit years later, I had the feeling that: This is a movie. [15] A fully Mandarin-subtitled version of the film played in select theaters on September 8, 2019. She made a film, "The Farewell," based on the story of her real-life grandmother. Within two weeks, with the help of another production company, Big Beach, The Farewell was financed and Wang was busy banging out a script. She wasnt suspicious; everybody on the crew knew not to tell her. And her friend saw a review of it and was so proud of her, one of her longest friends, and sent it to her. With A $21M Opening", "Keira Knightley in 'Official Secrets' and Molly Ivins Doc 'Raise Hell' Lead New Openers", "Awkwafina Proves She's More Than a Comedian in The Farewell", "Is The Farewell the olive branch the US-China culture war needs? The Farewell (2019 film) - Wikipedia Did she have anything else on deck? Send us a tip using our anonymous form. Wang and cinematographer Anna Franquesa Solano. If Nai Nai was given three months to live, how could that possibly be true? Shereturned to her hometown in China and even Nai Nais house! Its a very American show.), The episode of This American Lifedrew interest from film producers, and eventually Wangdid find the moneyto makeThe Farewell. And [my friend] was like, 'That's it.' I was really driven by how conflicted I was between, you know, the value system and what I felt was very wronglying to my grandmabut also the love that I also felt, Wang said. As stated in the film, it is believed in the East that a person's life is part of a whole (the family), instead of solely belonging to oneself. That immediacy of storytelling reminded me why I became a storyteller in the first place. It will be an all-Asian cast, I want to shoot in my grandmothers town, and my number one market is not the Chinese market the minute we try to change it to fit both sides of the equation, were sunk. And they just said, OK, well try to aim for it being a Sundance film then. They knew what the sweet spot was. Both Big Beach and Weitzs production company Depth of Field ended up coming on board. The 36-year-old director who came to the U.S. as a child in 1990; she grew up in Miami but now lives in Santa Monica had . I was actually making a screwball romantic comedy when this happened to me, says Wang, referring to her debut feature, Posthumous (2014). Starring Awkwafina (Oceans 8, Crazy Rich Asians) as Billi, a young Chinese American woman wrestling with her familys request to keep her Nai Nai in the dark, The Farewell delivers an exquisitely nuanced, slyly funny exploration of the machinations of family life, one that transcends the absurd screwball elements the elaborate deceit, the hastily arranged marriage thrown up by the culture clash at the heart of the real story. 2023 Cond Nast. The filmcloses with an even more shocking title card: Six years after her diagnosis,Wangs real Nai Nai is still alive. Did I end up conscripting an entire films cast and crew into this lie? "I got to see the city in a different way because I think when you look back on places that youre from or the places where you spent a lot of time as a child, you are viewing it through a romantic lens and a nostalgic lens," she says. She came to the set a couple of times when we were doing outdoor scenes and it ended up being fine. All revealed the same prognosis. is nai nai from the farewell still alive. Saying Goodbye: Revisiting Lulu Wang's The Farewell Her Nai Nai was played by 75-year-old veteran Chinese star Shuzhen Zhao. [5], Lulu Wang faced whitewashing obstacles when pitching her film about a Chinese American family. It will open in New York and Los Angeles on July 12. Why would they?, Did constructing another lie to make the movie she told her Nai Nai the film was about her family, but for obvious reasons wasnt specific on the details make it feel as if she was going through the same process again? My brother was born in America. All rights reserved. "On one level, I didn't want to shoot in my grandma's hometown because, um, we're trying to lie to her," Wang told the audience after the movie's Sundance premiere. They take so much money, and I dont fit in. Wang's mother told her over the phone, not in person like in the movie. It brought joy to all of us.. ", The reasoning behind keeping a secret like this from the real Nai Nai is "to make sure the person still lives a happy and carefree life, and that their condition does not get worse," Shuzhen said, and from her experiences meeting with Nai Nai, that's been the case. Wang says that one plus is that the lie gave birth to the film, which was shot in her family's hometown of Changchun. She fought on the side of the Communist Party against the Nationalists during the Chinese Revolution. So making this film became part of the lie. The then 33-year-old director already had one movie under her belt, 2014s Posthumous, and another she was burning to make. When Wang's grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, her family traveled to China to say goodbye, but decided to keep the diagnosis from the woman she affectionately called Nai Nai. She says that "life is not about what things one does, but more so about how one goes about doing them". She talks to Alistair Harkness ahead of the films screening at Glasgow Youth Film Festival. This caught the attention of producer Chris Weitz who helped secure financing for the film. http://www.youtube.com/GoldenGlobes\r\rCONNECT WITH US\rWEB: http://www.goldenglobes.com\rFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/GoldenGlobes\rTwitter: http://twitter.com/goldenglobes\rInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/goldenglobes/ So I can hang out with you?' Its bringing excitement to the neighborhood, the city, my family. And the title of the movie isDon't Tell Herin Chinese. The film was screened in the U.S. Guilt-ridden, Billi expresses conflicted thoughts with her parents over the Chinese cultural beliefs that result in a family refusing to disclose a life-threatening disease. As much as The Farewell is about confronting loss, it's also distinctly about place. Theres a version of this movie in some alternate universe where the laughs are broad, your heartstrings are constantly under attack, everyone learns a life lesson, and youre left with the recognizable taste of saccharine in your mouth. Advertise with us (Opens in new window) In a way I guess we were all entangled. Lulu Wang on good lies and immigrant family ties in 'The Farewell' It was a brilliant combo of audio theater and investigative journalism. ", It's easy to summarize The Farewell as being about one young woman's internal culture clash, but there's a transcendence to the film easily summed up by the recurring image of the sparrow. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Based on the real life experiences of director Lulu Wang and starring Awkwafina, the film follows a family trying to hide a cancer diagnosis from their elderly matriarch. That's just the nature of being an immigrant and straddling two cultures. Wang's Nai Nai is still alive today but hasn't seen the film because she still doesn't know. The Farewell review ScriptUp | Script Development for Film & TV Wang and her family would have liked to keep it that way, but due to Chinese-language reviews published ahead ofThe Farewell's upcomingrelease in China, Wang's grandmother found out the truth. No one really saw my perspective. But for me, going back and having agency allowed me to see the city as an adult. Jian Yongbo, Kmamura Aio, Chen Han, Tzi Ma, Awkwafina, Li Ziang, Tzi Ma, Lu Hong and Zhao Shuzhen in. We kept asking ourselves, is it ethical to make her go through this traumatic experience again, take after take? There are things that we don't see that are in motion that dictate our lives that we are not in control of.". Because "The Farewell" has yet to come out in China Wang said the Chinese distributor is eyeing a spring release, spurred by the film's success in the U.S. her grandmother still hasn . It's that this familyare are linked across continents; their intangible bonds expressed perfectly in that final visual. After the praise and success of Crazy Rich Asians and Ocean's 8 last year, Awkwafina . I just knew her music videos, because my brother was a fan. "I just didn't want to make any compromises on this particular story," she said, emphasizing that her goal was to make the film as authentic as it could be. The Farewell director Lulu Wang on challenging "what - Vox Lulu Wang's Grandmother Has Just Learned That 'The Farewell' Is About Her. [22][23], The Farewell was a box office "flop" in China, grossing only $580,000 by January 2020 in what was then the world's second-largest film market. How Lulu Wang's Grandmother Finally Finds Out the Secret - YouTube I thought I might as well give it a try, said Weitz, who was drawn to the conundrum at the center of the film, the notion that lying to a loved one can actually be a good thing. Yes. [20][21] The film expanded further to over 800 theaters in the next few weeks, $1.4 million from 861 theaters, $882,623 from 816 theaters and $841,414 from 891 theaters. Yes. Wang claims her grandmother eventually found out from discussing the movie with her little sister, who plays herself in the movie. But there's a twist at the very end that comes in the form of a reveal after the breathtaking final shot, and Wang herself thinks it's worth keeping quiet about it. Her grandmother was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer in 2013. The Farewell was a huge hit at Sundance, sparking a bidding war that ended with Wang turning down an additional $8 million from a streaming service to tie her wagon to A24, the film company behind Moonlight and Lady Bird. It also helped get her parents off her back regarding her decision to give up being a concert pianist or going to law school in favor of a life behind the camera. The Farewell: Lulu Wang reveals that her grandmother has figured out When Nai Nai visited the set, everyone still had to continue the lie; Wang told theTimes that Nai Nai thought that the movie was loosely based on our family, with everybody coming back to China for a wedding., Wangfinished the movie and premiered it at the Sundance Film Festival to enormous acclaim.
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