The Farewell
This is an inexpressibly beautiful movie. It explores the story of a young woman who finds out her grandmother (Nai Nai in Mandarin) has stage 4 cancer. Her family have decided not to tell Nai Nai that she’s going to die soon, so in order to come up with an excuse for the whole family to get together back in Changchun, China, her cousin, the other grandchild, decides to get married.
Most of this film is about honouring the matriarchal culture of China and showing how this honour is given. It’s a unique story that emphasises the vast differences between Western culture and Eastern cultures like the Chinese cultural mores around family that we see in this film. It explores questions about morality and sense of self in relation to culture, while also being a film that paints a beautiful picture of the relationship between a young woman and her Nai Nai.
While the family is lying to Nai Nai about her illness, simultaneously she is the person in charge, by a lot. She organises the wedding, she invites the guests, what she says goes. And their honouring of her as the matriarch of their family is poignant, even as they lie to her.
There are so many gorgeous moments in this film, it’s hard to know which ones to talk about. But I particularly love a scene when Nai Nai is performing a morning ritual, cleansing herself she says, walking around in circles while inhaling deep breaths, pushing out loud ‘ha’s to cleanse the toxins. She makes her granddaughter do it with her, teaches her the ritual, and it’s such a fun, lighthearted scene between the two of them. Not only that, but there is the symbolism here of this matriarch passing her cultural knowledge onto a new generation.
There are lots of tearful moments, lots of funny moments, lots of touching moments, but at its heart, this film focuses on the strong spirits of the women in this family, and that is something truly beautiful to behold. I love that it does this in the midst of exploring this wonderful culture and also the experiences of Asian Americans (as the main character is). It also shows the ways in which women support each other, but also some of the ways we struggle to work together. And in the midst of all that, we also get to see grief being played out in so many different ways, by the men and the women, and it’s quite beautiful to see the variety of reactions among the family members as they process their Nai Nai’s illness.
On top of all of that, we also get to see an incredibly beautiful farewell, where the main character has to leave knowing she won’t see her Nai Nai again and also knowing she can’t tell her that. Their goodbye is teary but with promises of ‘I’ll see you soon’, only we as the audience know what the granddaughter knows. It’s very unlikely they will ever see each other again. But she has to leave, she has to return to her life, a life her Nai Nai is incredibly proud of and wants her to go back to. She’s independent and trying to make her way in the world, and despite the fact that she wants to stay with her Nai Nai, she honours the wishes of her matriarch instead and returns to her life in New York.
When she gets there, she finds ways to honour Nai Nai, to carry on her legacy and remember her. The film ends with her scream of ‘ha’ into the world, to cleanse the toxins.
This is based on a true story by the way, and Nai Nai never died from her cancer. She only found out she had cancer as a result of the movie being made, which is so crazy, but hey, I guess it worked.
The Farewell is available to stream everywhere on Amazon Prime, and is available to rent or buy everywhere on YouTube, Google Play, Amazon Prime and Apple TV.
