Joy Ride (2023) Review!!

Synopsis – Follows four Asian-American friends as they bond and discover the truth of what it means to know and love who you are, while they travel through Asia in search of one of their birth mothers.

My Take – Isn’t it just great to see adult comedy films making a comeback? This latest one acts as a mix between Crazy Rich Asians (2018), the raunchy absurdity of a Judd Apatow production like Bridesmaids (2011) and the mayhem of The Hangover trilogy.

Marking the directorial debut of Adele Lim, the resulting film, written by Family Guy writers Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao and co-produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, is a comedy of errors that orchestrates equal measures of explicit humor and heart-warming sentiment.

At its most basic, this is yet another hilarious road trip comedy, but with the added cultural aspects and some deeper character development, it also becomes a thoughtful examination of identity, cultural connection, personal history and growth. It’s also very raunchy and allows the ladies to cut completely loose, providing a genuinely great mix of heartfelt moments and raw comedy.

Sure, the narrative stretches credibility a bit at times and has its share of predictable and sappy moments, but those minor faults are vastly overshadowed by its many strengths, including its fine ensemble cast and balanced pacing.

Yes, because of the nature of the humor sensitive viewers may want to skip it, which I wouldn’t exactly suggest as this one is no doubt one of the funnier comedies to come out in sometime.

The story follows Audrey (Ashley Park), a Chinese adopted daughter of white parents (David Denman and Annie Mumolo), who lives with Lolo (Sherry Cola), who became close childhood best friends, because of their ethnicity-growing up in a predominately white neighborhood. Ever since they were young, Audrey has been an overachiever and now works as a lawyer at a prestigious firm, while Lolo is an unapologetic hot mess with eccentric tastes in art.

An opportunity to travel to China opens up when Audrey is chosen to close a deal with a Chinese businessman name Chao (Ronny Chieng), but since she can’t speak Mandarin, she enlists Lolo as a translator. The two are joined by Vanessa (Sabrina Wu), Lolo’s socially awkward cousin, who is nicknamed Deadeye, and is obsessed with K-pop.

Once in China, they are joined by Kat (Stephanie Hsu), Audrey’s college friend turned Chinese soap star, and head along to a brutal night of competitive drinking with the potential client, who likes her until he finds out she has little connection to the culture. In an effort to save the big deal, the four are off on a road trip to find Audrey’s birth mother, leading to a crazy road trip that involves sex, drugs and truths that they weren’t aware of.

Of course, a road trip descending into chaos doesn’t exactly sound original, but it does the job. It leaves plenty of room for good comedic setups, and has a couple of decent emotional kickers in there too. It’s well paced and has good momentum throughout. The amount of conflicts the leads share as Asian American women of different backgrounds makes for a genuinely intriguing watch.

Aided by a lot of hysterically energetic banter between the four, one can see how much heart was elevated through an otherwise crazy thrill ride as far as raunchy comedies go these days. But even with how hard the film goes on explicit comedy, it still manages to tell a salient story about belonging.

While Audrey’s part in the story explores themes of never feeling like you’re enough for either side of your identity, Deadeye’s sense of belonging is built around their gender identity, and how they find meaning and friendship online, Kat’s story is wrapped up in hiding parts of herself in order to be accepted by her fiancé, and finally, Lolo is just trying to maintain her creativity and irreverent identity when the world says she shouldn’t. These four people couldn’t have been more different, but on this road trip, you can see how they all are dealing with the same questions and fears.

With a doubt, the biggest selling point for the whole film is the wacky hi jink raunch factor. While there are a lot of observational jabs and one liners directed towards people based on race and gender, most of the humor relies on the shock value our leads get themselves into as they encounter one intense obstacle after another. Complete with full body cringe takes and raw sexual banter, there is almost no stoppage of comical situations to enhance the viewing experience, even if some scenes are less tasteful than others.

The only real failing in my opinion is that at times it tries a little too hard with its comedy and at times it is crude just for the sake of being crude. While the motive is obvious, to grant woman an opportunity to operate in the R-rated comedy space, but a little course correction next time would help.

Performance wise, Ashley Park and Sherry Cola give us that bond of long-time friendship that makes it easy to cheer for them, even when they are doing objectively stupid things. Stephanie Hsu is also very funny, while, Sabrina Wu steals the show playing the sweet and shy fourth wheel who makes the quirkiest impression of the bunch.

In smaller roles, Desmond Chiam, Ronny Chieng, Annie Mumolo, David Denman, Chris Pang, Debbie Fan, Lori Tan Chinn, Alexander Hodge and Meredith Hagner are also good. On the whole, ‘Joy Ride’ is an entertaining sex comedy with just enough sincere heart and shock humor.