Do you want to find out when your days are counted or rather live happily unknowingly the little time you have left?
Chinese-American director Lulu Wang has his own experience of the issue. When her grandmother got cancer, the family chose not to tell her grandmother. Wang has said in several interviews that it is not uncommon for people in China to avoid serious disease diagnoses for those affected. In addition to wanting to spare the sick person from death anxiety, there is the idea that science speeds up the process of death, you simply give up prematurely.
The Farewell is about this, about a family who bid farewell to the grandmother without even knowing it. Instead, relatives from near and far gather in China under the false pretense that the cousin is getting married. The family thus creates a lie to darken an even bigger lie. What is officially a joyful moment is unofficially a sadness. Yes, it all gets several layers of complexity.
In the midst of the mixed emotions stands granddaughter Billi, the grandmother's favorite. They both have a strong bond even though Billi does not live in China but in the United States, where her parents emigrated early. In the United States, or any western country, it would be considered absurd that a cancer-affected person should not be allowed to take part in their own diagnosis.
But why is it absurd?
"She may have things she wants to do before she dies, she may have people she wants to say goodbye to," Billi reasoned. But that argument is put down by the relatives: what matters is whether you have a deadly disease or not. Which in the long run leads to the question of what is important here in life, and what relationships are worth caring for.
The Chinese-American Awkwafina who plays Billi has made a comet career as a comedian and rapper in the United States. She was also recently awarded a Golden Globe for the role in The Farewell - a historic win because it makes her the first American of Asian origin to be awarded the award.
This is not without significance, in both song texts and comedy plays, Awkwafina has often joked about Asian stereotypes and criticized the Asian under-representation in American media. She is therefore well suited as a grandchild with one foot in the traditional east and the other in the secularized west. The one who looks at the two cultures both from the inside and from the inside.
It is difficult to categorize this Oscar-themed indie film which is basically a drama but which also has features of comedy which unfortunately is sometimes dangerously close to Dad's. The feelings are, to say the least, complex during the "wedding preparations", the grandmother wonders why the family cries rivers when the little cousin marries and so on. Sometimes the situation becomes absurd.
The best is The Farewell instead in the low-key moments, like when Billi and the grandmother hang out on your hand. The grandmother's joy at having the granddaughter close is extra touching as you know that Billi is there to say goodbye. Something she has already done in one sentence: China is no longer her homeland, her language skills are rusty, her memories are weakened.
The grandmother is the only strong, living link Billi has to the country and that link is now about to disappear. Therein lies a double sorrow, and it is the one that makes the film interesting.