Joy Ride (2023)
dir. Adele Lim
Rated: R
image: ©2023 Lionsgate
The gleefully raunchy gross-out comedy of 2023 has arrived. Joy Ride sticks to a formula and its story beats might be a little too familiar, but the phenomenally talented cast, who are up for damn near anything, make the movie sing. It’s destined to be compared to 2011’s Bridesmaids, since both movies feature predominantly female casts and revel in their bawdiness, but Joy Ride, along with Bridesmaids, holds its own with some of the best hard-R comedies of recent memory, like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Booksmart, another female-centered absurdist comedy.
I knew I was in for a good time as soon as the introductory scene pumped up Ants Marching by Dave Matthews Band on the soundtrack as a way to establish a predominantly white community. I’m as big a fan of DMB as the next guy – as long as the next guy is a hacky-sacking hippie – but I can recognize and fully understand why the band is gently mocked as something with which certain subsets of white people are obsessed.
We meet our protagonists in 1998, in the fictional neighborhood of White Hills(!) in Seattle. Audrey, who was adopted in China by a white American couple, meets a newcomer to the area, Lolo Chen. The two young girls form a bond. Lolo instantly earns Audrey’s respect and admiration when she silences a little white boy who spews an anti-Asian racist epithet at the two girls as they walk toward a swing set on a playground.
We see the girls grow up in a montage sequence that solidifies each of their personalities. Audrey deals with standing out in a predominantly white space by becoming laser-focused on academic and career achievement. Lolo does the same by being unapologetically herself; she focuses her attention on sex- and body-positive art. Outside of her passion for creating art, Lolo is a complete slacker, which puts an unspoken distance between the two friends.
Cut to the present day. Audrey is now an associate at a high-powered law firm. A big deal is in the works with Chao, a Chinese businessman, and Audrey’s boss dangles the promise of making her a partner at the firm if she travels to China and can close the deal. Audrey arranges for Lolo to be her interpreter while overseas, as Audrey doesn’t speak the language, while her friend does.
The first sign that Lolo will be a wild card on the trip comes when she tells Audrey that she has invited her socially awkward, K-pop obsessed cousin, Vanessa, to go with them. Vanessa’s nickname is Deadeye, and we find out why when we meet the fourth member of the gang. Audrey’s college roommate, Kat, is now a famous actor in China starring in a successful TV series. She is overjoyed to see and spend time with her college roomy, despite Audrey knowing every detail about her promiscuous past. Kat is trying to keep that sordid history under wraps from her celibate and devoutly Christian fiancé, Clarence, who is also her costar on the hit TV show.
Wooing the business prospect at a nightclub goes horribly, horribly wrong. One of the funniest bits of the movie comes when Audrey, in an effort to show Chao she can keep up with him, takes something called a thousand-year-shot that has a questionable ingredient. After a valiant (and hysterical) attempt to keep it down, Audrey vomits all over Chao. After cleaning himself up, Audrey and Lolo change tack by reinforcing Chao’s stated beliefs in knowing one’s roots and history. Lolo assures the businessman that, while Audrey is adopted, she knows and has a close relationship with her birth mother, who lives in China.
The only problem is, none of that is true. Audrey has always dreamed of finding her birth mother, but all she has to go on is one photograph. After some quick and easy research (the kind that only seems to happen in the movies), Lolo contacts a woman who worked at the adoption agency where Audrey was taken at birth. When the adoption worker discloses some earth-shattering news to Audrey, the gang set out on a mission to find her mother, so they can convince her to come to a party Chao is hosting.
Similar to other gonzo raunchy comedies, like The Hangover or Superbad, the plot of Joy Ride is heavily episodic with most of the laughs coming from the increasingly baroque and ridiculous situations in which the characters find themselves. A standout sequence involves a fully (and gloriously silly) choreographed dance sequence in which the women, after losing their passports, must convince airport security that they are the hottest new K-pop group, Brownie Tuesday. They lay down an inspired cover of Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s (in)famous pop hit WAP. The sequence ends with one of the women’s, shall we say, delicately located, tattoo being exposed.
Another hilarious passage involves the gang trying to travel via train. They are forced to choke down – or, in Kat’s case, stuff up – a colossal amount of drugs when it’s clear that the woman they are sharing a cabin with is a drug smuggler and that Chinese authorities are searching the train for her. Kat laments that cocaine makes her incredibly horny, and we see that effect firsthand when a condom full of the illicit substance bursts inside of her.
Writing partners Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao – who have both worked on the animated sitcom Family Guy – wrote the screenplay for Joy Ride based on a story by the duo and Adele Lim, who directed. This is Lim’s feature directorial debut. The writer/director/producer is probably best known for cowriting the screenplay for the 2018 smash hit Crazy Rich Asians, and she lets the four leads of her movie run absolutely wild.
Ashley Park, as the determined and serious Audrey, is the tamest of the quartet. When her character has to bring her A-game to the shenanigans – like the aforementioned K-pop number – Park holds her own with the more flamboyant members of the group.
Sherry Cola (what a great stage name!) is agent-of-chaos Lolo. The character antagonizes Kat at every turn for trying to scrub her promiscuous college days clean and Cola relishes each and every opportunity. Stephanie Hsu, hot off of costarring in 2022’s Oscar Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All at Once, is up for almost anything, including a frantic search for a missing condom full of cocaine where the sun don’t shine.
Sabrina Wu rounds out the quartet as the socially awkward Deadeye. They play the character as a misfit with a heart of gold. It might be hard to hold a conversation with the maladroit Deadeye, but when it’s go-time, there’s no better person to have in your corner. Ronny Chieng, who appeared in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Crazy Rich Asians, is woefully underused as Chao, the Chinese businessman who Audrey must win over for her firm. Chieng has a comedic anarchy running under each performance I’ve seen from him, and I desperately want the actor to get some bigger roles which allow that anarchy to run loose.
Beneath all the grossout humor and outrageous situations in Joy Ride is a heartfelt exploration of growing up in a place where almost no one looks like you. Chevapravatdumrong and Hsiao’s script wrestles with how second-generation immigrants, as well as people who are adopted, often struggle to find a sense of history and belonging. In Joy Ride, that existential longing to fit in happens to come with a boatload of cocaine.
Why it got 4 stars:
- Joy Ride is infectiously funny. I didn’t write much about it in the main review, but representation matters. It’s wonderful to experience the world from a completely different perspective; it’s what excites me the most about the art of cinema. This movie is a wonderful example of new voices being heard.
Things I forgot to mention in my review, because, well, I'm the Forgetful Film Critic:
- There’s a great throwaway moment when Audrey is at work and she refers to “Dave, Dave…other Dave…”
- The screenwriters slipped in a Succession joke that already feels dated, since that show recently ended its run.
- There’s also a joke about one of the women having sexual thoughts about Splinter, you know, from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, that had me literally laughing out loud.
- We get some glorious examples of the female gaze when one of the quartet hooks up with a famous real-life basketball star (I’m only now realizing I never even touched on this in the review!).
- Ashley Park’s Gollum impression is * chef’s kiss * splendid.
Close encounters with people in movie theaters:
- Rae and I saw this at the Cedars Alamo. The one thing the screening was missing — to the definite detriment of the movie — was a big, boisterous crowd laughing at the jokes. There were only a handful of us in the theater. I had to imagine a packed crowd on opening night raucously enjoying the show.