Thursday, August 23, 2018

Weekly Rec: Two Great New Romcoms

Allow me to join the chorus of people telling you this: If you haven't yet seen Crazy Rich Asians and/or To All the Boys I've Loved Before, you should absolutely do that this weekend, because they are PURE DELIGHT.

Crazy Rich Asians, now in theaters, is the first Asian-led big box office movie since The Joy Luck Club, so I was eager to support it regardless, but it was GREAT. I loved Kevin Kwan's books on which it's based, and this adaptation made some changes but stayed very faithful to the spirit of the books. And it was just a joy in its own right. It's about a Chinese-American woman who goes home to Singapore with her boyfriend and discovers that his family is one of the richest in the world, and all the drama that comes from that. The cast, led by Constance Wu, Henry Golding, and Michelle Yeoh, is great, and the movie is just visually stunning as well as enchanting and hilarious. It's the first movie since Call Me By Your Name that made me think "I want to be watching this forever" while I was watching.

If you want to stay home, watch To All the Boys I've Loved Before on Netflix. It's a romcom based on the YA book of the same name by Jenny Han, and honestly? I liked but didn't love the book, but I loved the movie. It's about a teenager named Lara Jean who tucks away letters she writes to her crushes . . . and then they all get sent out. She winds up fake dating one in order to make another think she doesn't actually like him and, well, you can guess where that's headed, but how it gets there is AWESOME. This has a really interesting Asian-American heroine, close but complex family relationships, one of the best move love interests in a long time, and a great aesthetic - the fashion, the set design, the soundtrack. (I've listened to the soundtrack every day since I watched it.) This was an automatic favorite, a comfort movie I can see watching over and over.

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