'The Farewell' proves Awkwafina's amazing 2018 was no fluke

The Farewell opens with the promise that it's "based on an actual lie," and then proceeds to show us a conversation full of falsehoods, as two relatives on opposite sides of the Atlantic feed each other fibs to spare the other from worry.

But this isn't a relationship based on dishonestly, not really. The lies being traded back and forth are, in their own way, as revealing as the truth. That kind of messy reality is exactly where The Farewell resides.

The biggest whopper told in The Farewell is that Nai Nai (Zhao Shuzhen) is well. In fact, she is dying of cancer, and everyone knows this but Nai Nai herself. So her family have assembled in China to say their goodbyes, under the pretext of a last-minute wedding.

Late to the party is Billi (Awkwafina), Nai Nai's cherished granddaughter. Though Billi was born in China, she and her parents moved to the U.S. when she was a child. So the trip, for Billi, is not quite a visit, and not quite a homecoming, but something in between.

Up to this point, Awkwafina's acting career has consisted mostly of comic-relief supporting roles in films like Crazy Rich Asians and Ocean's 8, but The Farewell stands as proof she's capable of much, much more. Awkwafina shoulders this dramatic leading role with grace, and a showstopper monologue near the end of the film should win over any final skeptics.

As Billi and her relatives (including an excellent Tzi Ma, who plays her father) navigate this delicate situation, The Farewell explores all the contradictions and complications inherent in families, even the happy, stable ones – the push and pull of love, the elusiveness and the indelibility of the past, the ever-shifting liminal space occupied by immigrants.

But I'm probably making it sound heavier than it really feels. Director Lulu Wang has a fine grasp of pacing and tone, and her film glides smoothly from one feeling to the next. I laughed out loud in parts, and I wept openly at others, and found that the humor and pathos enhanced, not undermined, each other. There are long periods where nothing much happens in terms of plot development, but everything happens in terms of emotion. Not a second of it feels wasted.

Every moment of The Farewell is bursting with perfect details specific not just to the culture but to these individual characters. A tremendous amount of thought must have gone into picking the bowls that litter a dining table, or writing exactly the right punchline to cap off a sad-sweet speech, and yet the choices feel so right that they become almost invisible.

The Farewell often feels less like a movie than a door into someone else's rooms, someone else's family, someone else's life. Death may be the catalyst for this story, but the film itself feels like a pulsing, breathing, living thing. By the end of the movie, when the reunion finally ends and the characters drive away, I felt almost as sorry to say goodbye as they did.