By Leon Ren A winner of numerous accolades, The Farewell, released in 2019 starring Awkwafina, is a must-watch A24 Film for all audiences, especially Asian-Americans. The story revolves around protagonist Billi, an Asian-American New York native, and her emotional struggle after her family informs her that her grandmother Nai Nai is dying of Stage IV terminal lung cancer. Since everyone knows about her grandma’s condition but Nai Nai herself, Billi faces an inner, moral conflict of not divulging to her oblivious grandma about her condition. In a state of disarray, grief, and turmoil, Billi is torn between the contrasting ideologies of East and West. A poignant, revolutionary Asian-American tale, Lulu Wang’s 2019 film The Farewell is intertwined with profound concepts such as the complex molding of familial dynamics through cross-cultural ethics, the mystical concept of the American Dream, and the ubiquitous feeling of futility accompanying mortality.
A primary aspect of the film is the exploration of the ways in which differing ethical philosophies manifest themselves in families. Throughout the film, the family continuously evades the possibility of Nai Nai discovering her illness. They do this by bringing her to the hospital under false pretenses, speaking solely in English such that the language barrier prevents Billi’s grandmother from comprehending, and falsifying her biopsy. And, the principal event of the movie is the wedding of Billi’s cousin, which they don’t tell Nai Nai the real reason for its prematurity: an excuse for everyone to visit Nai Nai one last time. The moral grayness of the story becomes more ambiguous as it’s revealed that Nai Nai participated in concealing the secret of her then-alive husband’s cancer diagnosis from him, thus exhibiting how customary the practice of medical nondisclosure is in China. The tradition is principally rooted in Confucianism, specifically its emphasis on personal ethics and the disregard of self. The ideology induces the family’s collective belief in the concept of intervention, justifying it through them carrying the burden of the tragedy rather than the individual. Being raised in the United States, Billi instinctively objects and holds many American values such as autonomy and individualism. Nurtured in an environment where privacy and practices such as HIPAA rights are common, she informs them of its illegality of withholding this. They dismiss her, deem her selfish, and note how the American traits have caused this weakness in morality. Since Nai Nai is part of a community, her life and fate dictates a whole network’s and thus the family members can justify their actions through the notion of supporting the collective strength of the family. In their perceptions and logic, they are obligated to protect Nai Nai from harm so she can ignorantly live a life of leisure. Though physically Asian, Billi supposedly lacks the integrity and teachings of Chinese philosophies and thus Bill imposes on the family’s unanimous decision to maintain the secret. Billi struggles with this and feels immense isolation due to her contrasting belief and inability to assimilate back to her home country.
Another central theme of the film is the glorification of the American Dream. Firstly, her family and other Chinese people bombard her with questions about this external country out of awe and mystique when she first arrives in China. Simultaneously, they envy and despise her parents’ choice to immigrate, since their leaving implied the abandonment of their physical family and essentially their inherent roots. Billi connects with the audiences as they witness time and time again how she faces disappointment from her family and herself. Searching for employment, she gets rejected from her dream fellowship, and faces extreme financial downturn. When she travels back to China, she lies to her family members about the rejection in order to avoid the imminent humiliation of her failure and essentially the downfall of the American Dream. Like many second-generation children, Billi seeks the validation of her parents and other external forces. She feels overwhelmed with a sense of unworthiness, dreads the possibility of her not being able to fulfill her parent’s wishes, and fears not making their choice of immigrating worth it. In the movie, the other members delineate how her parents' support of her symbolizes “the investing of her talent”, to which her mother replies quickly that Billi is “the losing stock”. Her parents are living vicariously through her. Thus, Billi encounters the inevitable possibility that her failures become her parents’ while experiencing the complexities of attaining the American Dream.
Furthermore, the deformity of identity and disillusionment consumes Billi, which is only exacerbated by the realization of her grandmother’s impending death. Lulu Wang beautifully portrays Billi’s feelings of helplessness and the inability of an individual to prevent the mortality of a loved one in various elements. Billi uses all her power to maintain the strength of the bond with her grandmother and even longs to stay in China with her. Nai Nai is symbolic of China, home, and her childhood. By leaving her alone, Billi fears the fate of her grandmother as well as of her legacy and connection to identity. Her grandmother symbolizes the family’s collective ties to their culture and ancestry. With Nai Nai gone, she speculates the future of the family, her place within this society, and her tether to her past. Also, her grandmother has left an indelible mark on her life as she continues to admire Billi and see her strength despite her drawbacks and others’ perceptions of her. With her grandmother, Billi is vulnerable enough to confess to her that she didn’t receive the fellowship. Nai Nai is able to see Billi’s authenticity to the family lineage despite her citizenship or mannerisms. Her grandmother is a source of comfort and the constant in her life that she’ll always be connected to China.
As an Asian-American, Billi finds herself in a distinct, unprecedented position, converging the two contrasting worlds, which creates her further dissociation of identity. The juxtaposition between Billi’s thinking and her family’s is apparent in the film and stems from the substantial contrasts in Western vs. Eastern ideologies. The norms of the East have culminated into the family’s practice of withholding dire and life-altering information from Nai Nai. Wang creatively portrays the prevalence of the American Dream in immigrant families as well as the way in which the idea of mortality, especially concerning loved ones, consumes individuals. The Farewell has transformed my personal view on family and my identity. I relate to Billy in a multitude of aspects and recommend everyone to watch it. It’s transformative to see her progression as she comes to terms with her life and experiences. The movie culminates with Billi returning to America with a newfound perspective of life. In the final scene, we see her stopping in the middle of New York using her grandma’s daily practice of cathartic yelling, symbolizing that no matter where she is, she’s connected to her family and grandma.
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