JOY RIDE : Tuesday 18th July 2023.

'JOY RIDE' (Rated MA15+), which I saw earlier this week, is an American comedy film based on a story jointly conceived by Adele Lim and Co-Produced and Directed by Adele Lim in her Directorial debut. The film saw its World Premiere screening at SXSW in mid-March this year, was released Stateside and here in Australia last week, has generated largely positive critical reviews, and has so far grossed US$12.5M.

The film opens up in the mid-1990's in the suburb of White Hills, Seattle, where Joe and Mary Sullivan (David Denman and Annie Mumolo respectively) sidle up in a kids playground to Wey and Jenny Chen (Kenneth Liu and Debbie Fan respectively) and ask if their daughter can play with their daughter. The Chinese parents looks somewhat bewilderingly at the all white American couple, until it is revealed that the Sullivan's have an adopted Chinese child, and they are looking for a young girl from the same cultural background to play with their daughter. And so begins a beautiful life long best friendship between Audrey Sullivan and Lolo Chen. 

We then fast track twenty-plus years to the present day and Audrey (Ashley Park) and Lolo (Sherry Cola) are living together still in Seattle. Audrey is a go getter over achieving type who works as a lawyer at a prestigious legal firm, while Lolo makes sex-positive art, which she has on display in her parents Chinese restaurant. Audrey is all but guaranteed a promotion to partner and a relocation to Los Angeles if she can seal a deal with a Chinese businessman. Audrey and Lolo take a trip to China, and at the airport are joined by Lolo's cousin Vanessa, nicknamed 'Deadeye' (Sabrina Wu), who is awkward in social situations, has met all her 'friends' online and is obsessed with K-pop. Once there, Audrey meets her former college roommate and close friend Kat (Stephanie Hsu), who is an Actress on a popular daytime show, and despite being sexually promiscuous in college, is engaged to her co-star and seemingly devout Christian fiance Clarence (Desmond Chiam), who is saving himself for marriage. 

The group of four meet with Chao (Ronny Chieng), the Chinese businessman at a nightclub where they play party games, drink copious quantities of alcohol which ultimately leads Audrey to vomit all over his nice clean white shirt. Chao is the forgiving kind it seems and states that in order for him to do business with Audrey, he must meet her birth family, whom she has never met. Afterall, how can he do future business with her, if he doesn't understand her past! Lolo lies to Chao that Audrey is close to her birth mother but that her father has passed away. Prior to the trip, Lolo called Audrey's adoption agency and tracked them down. Audrey reluctantly agrees to meet her birth mother and take her to a birthday party that Chao's is hosting for his 70 year old mother the following Friday. 

The four women board a train to get them to Audrey's adoption agency, where they are seated next to an American woman who has lived in China for the past five years, and as it turns out is a drug dealer. When there is an inspection of every carriage and compartment, they are forced to consume various amounts of cocaine and hide the various stashes both on, and inside their bodies. The drug dealer steals their luggage and passports and has them ejected from the train. Stranded in the middle of nowhere in rural China, Lolo contacts former NBA star Baron Davis, whose team is currently playing in China and who just happen to pick them up in their tour bus. Audrey, Lolo and Kat injure some of the players in sex-related accidents while Deadeye injures a player while dancing to K-pop later that night, causing the team to refuse to drive them to their destination the next morning. 

The group eventually makes it to their destination. There, Audrey learns that her mother had passed away and that she is in fact not Chinese but instead of Korean origin. In a final effort to secure the deal, one of Deadeye's online 'friends' secures them a private jet to get them to Seoul, but without their passports, the customs officer won't let them pass through. And so the women pretend to be a new K-pop teen idol group to pass the border, but the customs officer remains unconvinced and asks for a demonstration of their act. Lolo livestreams their performance on Instagram Live, only for Kat's skirt to inadvertently fall off, revealing a large tattoo of a devil's head and horns on her shaved vagina. They are forced instead to take a boat into mainland Korea. 

Lolo's livestream quickly goes viral, with hundreds of millions of people seeing Kat's tattooed vagina. Chao calls Audrey to inform her that the deal is off, and then Audrey is fired from her job, while Kat is now at risk of losing her television deal with her acting career practically now dead and buried. The women have a fight and split the scene. Audrey visits her grave, but meets her birth mother's husband there (Daniel Dae Kim). Her husband shows Audrey a video recorded by her birth mother before her passing and tells her that her friends had told him he might find Audrey at her birth mother's grave. Audrey returns to Seattle and reconciles her differences with Lolo and Deadeye, both now working at Lolo's parents restaurant, while Audrey confirms that she was fired from her legal firm.

Fast track one year on and Audrey, Lolo, Kat, and Deadeye are in Paris for a best-friends anniversary trip. Audrey has by now set up in business on her own with her own legal practice, Lolo is still waiting tables but has begun selling her art, Deadeye has accepted themself as nonbinary, and Kat is still engaged to Clarence, having come clean to him about her past sexual exploits with the complete A-Z of men she has slept with. 

'Joy Ride' sees four American Asian women further strengthening their relationship through a road trip that is meant to be sentimental, emotional, business-like and professional but fairly quickly turns into a foul-mouthed, oftentimes crass, sexual (mis)adventure and definitely for adults only offering that will likely turn some viewers off while it will have others rolling about the aisles with laughter. These four women on tour turn the tables on the men they all encounter from the very get go and give as good as they get if not better, which is a refreshing showcase of Asian people and women in particular in a comedy film the like of which is all to rare these days. And in first time feature Director, Adele Lim here she has crafted a film that aside from the physical sight gags and the one-liners that all come thick and fast she has also made a film about learning where you belong in the world, and the strength to be derived from family and enduring friendships. All of that said, the comedy didn't really land with me and it's only occasionally funny, but it is elevated by the obvious chemistry on display here between the four female leads and the lean 95 minute run time which is a little over half of some of the other movie epics released of late.

'Joy Ride' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-