The Farewell

One of the most moving and heartfelt films about an elaborate fib, Wang’s tender and idiosyncratic family reunion drama assumes the rare balance of a dark comedy and a genuinely earnest expression of love, amidst all its miscommunications. Awkwafina turns in a staggering lead performance as the Chinese-born, U.S.-raised Billi, who reluctantly goes from New York to Changchun—an industrial center located in northeast China’s Jilin province—to find that, although her entire family knows their beloved matriarch Nai Nai has been given a few weeks to live, everyone has decided not to tell her. Instead, they pretend their gathering is for a joyous, if strangely sudden, wedding. Through Wang’s remarkable ear for dialogue and personal connection to the material (it is, as the film states in its opening, based on an actual lie), The Farewell builds toward a one-of-a-kind portrait of the immigrant experience, of intergenerational and culture-clashing family dynamics, and the lengths we’re willing to go to say goodbye.