Joy Ride

Since starting this blog about four months ago, I’ve seen a bunch of new releases I otherwise would have skipped. I’d already decided I needed to up my consumption of new movies, but writing about them is extra incentive. Even more so if they’re getting a bunch of pre-release buzz, since if I can get up a review soon after wide release, it’ll get more views than normal (well, unless it’s Asteroid City). As I’ve mentioned before, this has meant seeing, and sometimes even prioritizing, movies which I’m personally not that excited about. Which is fine: trailers don’t always do a film justice, and sometimes my taste surprises even me. Plus, I believe seeing movies you don’t like is important to help identify why you like the ones you do, which can be key for finding new movies and further exploring your taste. Especially since so many films (and often the best films) defy easy classification, so that nuanced understanding can be important to quickly know if a movie is worth your time.

Of course, it sometimes puts me in the unfortunate position of raining on people’s parade. Not that you should take my word as gospel. Everyone’s entitled to their taste, and it’s unlikely yours will match mine exactly. Which is why I try to cover a bunch of aspects of the filmmaking and highlight both what I think works and what doesn’t. Because even my least favorite film ever (Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey) has some redeeming qualities.

As you’ve no doubt guessed, this preamble is to tell you I really did not like Joy Ride (although it’s leagues better than Blood and Honey).

Audrey (Ashley Park) is an associate at a law firm, living and working in the same place she grew up. She’s tasked with traveling to China to land a deal, and if she succeeds, she’ll be rewarded by being made a Partner. She decides to bring her lifelong best friend Lolo (Sherry Cola), an artist focused on sex-positive sculptures. Who in turn invites her cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu), an obsessive fan of K-pop whose social awkwardness causes Audrey much anxiety. Soon after landing, they meet up with Audrey’s college roommate and best friend Kat (Stephanie Hsu) on the set of her soap opera. With the gang assembled, it’s time for the adventure to begin!

But by that point, I had long been side-eyeing this movie. Apart from the constant and frank discussion of sex and horniness and dicks, it looked like it was just hitting all the same standard tropes of a group comedy. You even have the four common character archetypes: the straight-laced, “mature” one; the blunt, crazy partier who’s game for anything; the one who was a partier, but has changed (allegedly); and the one everyone thinks is super weird, who screams things at random and inopportune times. The one adjustment to that formula is swapping in sex for more general partying. I kept flashing back to The Hangover.

The biggest thing that always bugs me about that style of comedy, more so now than when I was younger, is that they don’t really feel like friends. They’re constantly being awful to each other, absurdly selfish, talking behind each other’s backs, and using those details to one-up one another. I get it, it’s supposed to be funny, but it really harms the dynamic of a group they want us to believe are friends. Good-natured ribbing is pretty healthy friend stuff. But telling one friend another’s secrets, before they immediately spill the beans, less so. And lying to someone else such that you’re forced to initiate a meeting with your birth parents against your will? Just plain messed up.

Because that’s an aspect I haven’t mentioned yet, which does result in some good moments. As an infant, Audrey was adopted from China and raised by white parents, leading her friends to often refer to her as "basically white”. That tension is a simmering in the background, as her Asian appearance but American suburban upbringing leave her feeling like a fish out of water no matter where she is. She’s not Asian enough for her Asian friends, but never accepted as white, either. Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t really end up doing much to explore that, leaving it as an unsatisfied aspect of her character. Admittedly, given I just watched an entire film with that as its premise, maybe I expected too much.

There is another element to the whole adoption plot line which is intriguing, but whose details are a spoiler, so I’ll keep it vague. It works from a character perspective, since it furthers questions of Audrey’s understanding of her own identity and comfort in her own skin. It also lands as a comment on Hollywood and American’s homogenization of all East Asian people into the single label “Asian”. This element is fairly well developed (although not super deeply), and leads to a very effective and emotional scene. Given my reaction to the beginning and middle of this film, I did not expect to care enough about the characters to cry as we approached the end, and yet it absolutely got me.

Many of the other attempts at drawing us in and caring are clunky or cliched or just plain don’t work. For example, the subplot with Kat and her extremely Christian fiance Clarence (Desmond Chiam), who doesn’t know she’s ever had sex (never mind how much), comes across as a flat, sit-com relationship. There are a couple limp attempts at Deadeye getting real and acknowledging how everyone views them, but they primarily come iwhile Deadeye is screaming at and scamming a 10-year-old Chinese boy, so they don’t land. And that’s when they follow through: there’s a few implications that Deadeye is romantically interested in Audrey, which is unceremoniously abandoned.

I will say, my instinct to compare this movie to The Hangover is also part of its success. It’s been rare to see a raunchy sex comedy featuring non-male actors, never mind all East Asian actors. Much more often, East Asian women (and Asian women as a whole) have been festishized by American films, such that even when they wield their sexuality, it’s not for their own pleasure. However, Lolo and Kat are very into sex, very horny, very in control of that sexuality, and it’s never used to titillate the audience. And Audrey experiences a bit of a sexual awakening in China. Not that she was a prude before, but she gains the confidence to ask for what she wants, and finds two attractive guys who are eager to oblige. Sex is not dirty in this film: it’s just life, and it’s fun.

Deadeye doesn’t express any sexual desire in the film. Which is also perfectly fine and normal: asexual people exist, and are incredibly rarely depicted on screen. The one complicating factor is the aforementioned implied attraction to Audrey. Granted, you can be asexual without being aromantic: they're not the same thing. But without any further comment, it just plays a little odd.

So yeah, this didn’t work for me. The comedy was too loud and over the top in a way that felt obnoxious, it wasn’t as clever or as fresh as it thought it was, and it didn’t have anything to say with its plot. That being said, I am glad it exists. We’ve slowly seen more and more mainstream American movies where the cast is not just full of white people, and ones where all the main characters are East Asian actors have been on a particularly strong run. This is another example, and the buzz around it shows just how much the people hunger for such stories. Bringing in less well represented filmmakers and perspectives is how you end up with the types of fresh takes I value so highly.