Arts Vanity: Overanalyzing ‘Crazy Rich Asians’

I did not like “Crazy Rich Asians” the first time that I saw it, which was at its 2018 Singapore premiere in the Capitol Theatre. I was there not because I am a Crazy Rich Asian — I am one of three on a good day, two on a bad — but rather because I was friends with someone who was the daughter of an influencer, and Singapore is small enough that the number of relevant invitees is almost less than theater capacity.

As it was, I watched the film in the presence of director Jon M. Chu and leading actor Henry Golding, in a seat maybe two times larger and more plush than any movie theater seat that I had previously graced with my ass. I was bald and in a red pantsuit that I had borrowed from my mother, deeply conscious of the many absurdly beautiful and rich people in beautiful and expensive clothing around me.

Later, reviewers would point out a multitude of reasons to hate the film. The overwhelming East Asianness of the entire cast, for one, or its very narrow portrayal of Singapore, or its essentializing take on East and West. All valid critiques, but I just remember feeling at the time that the third act, following Araminta’s wedding, was way too rushed. I left the premiere underwhelmed.

But the movie has dogged me throughout my college years, little bits that I never quite added up until I look back now at the constellation of Crazy Rich Asianness which has permeated my collegiate experience. My first ever Crimson article was a review of Constance Wu’s memoir; I wrote a paper on the movie’s Mandarin cover of “Yellow” for a Hist-Lit seminar; a term I learned in class, “narrative plentitude,” was from Viet Thanh Nguyen’s op-ed about the film. When people ask me for recommendations of what to eat in Singapore, I suggest Newton Food Center, for the seafood. “It’s the hawker center in ‘Crazy Rich Asians,’” I always supply after as context, as if this endorsement is akin to a Michelin Star.

“Angelina,” a lot of people will say, “you are making a big, perhaps unnecessary, deal out of a rom-com that came out seven years ago.”

This is true. Unfortunately, most of my college years have been spent making a big and unnecessary deal out of things that mean very little to most people. I do this in Crimson articles; in essays with embarrassingly tiny scopes; in the gossip I share with friends; in the internet cesspool called X (formerly Twitter) where I spend most of my screentime.

As an Arts editor, I am often plagued by worries that I am wasting my limited time writing about unserious art instead of doing serious things, like buying crypto or identifying potential millionaires that I should be seducing in order to secure my financial future. Instead, I have written extensively about my thoughts on romance novels and comedy dating shows and musicals with assless chaps.

These articles and experiences have brought me a lot of joy, but if I’m being honest, I often wonder if the art which I examine and write about are ultimately worth the critical rigor that reviewing them demands. I know exactly how much time I waste in translating my thoughts into words, often much less eloquently and less productively than hundreds of people before me. With the internet, everyone’s a critic. What makes my opinions more worthy of publication? Who cares what I think? And if they did care, what if they disagreed?

I spend a lot of time worrying that I had the wrong opinion about a particular book or concert, or that I wasn’t being mindful of all the different nuanced beats of a film, or that I wasn’t the right person to review an album. I worry that the piece that I eventually publish is not perfect.

Becoming a reviewer, oddly, has made me more sympathetic towards artists, because I realize just how tough it is to put yourself out there. Rom-coms like “Crazy Rich Asians” only work when the creative team and crew take it seriously; they are a labor of love and an exercise in earnestness.

Earnestness, in particular, is something that I struggle with. I have accumulated many things throughout my three and a half years of college; among them are the freshman fifteen, the considerable haul that I have “thrifted” out of the Winthrop donation bin, and a healthy dose of skepticism.

The latter has made me a more critical writer and thinker. It has also, to my chagrin, made me a more cynical person. But what better balm to cynicism than the rom-com?

Most rom-coms have three essential elements; the meet-cute, the confession scene, the happy ending. Perhaps because “Crazy Rich Asians” lacks a meet-cute scene, Jon M. Chu is generous enough to provide us with not one, but two confessions. One happens off-screen, which is Nick’s first proposal to Rachel (Constance Wu) in Merlion Park, which she rejects.

The second is his proposal on the plane as Rachel, self-actualized and self-righteous, heads back to New York City to continue being an Economics professor. Nick barges onto the flight, because of course you can afford a last-minute transpacific plane ticket when you are a Crazy Rich Asian.

“I know this is a far throw from a hidden paradise,” Golding and his beautiful face exclaims earnestly to Wu, on bended knee. “But wherever you are in the world, that’s where I belong. Rachel Chu, will you marry me and make me the happiest man in this world?” And then he waits for her to respond.

To confess is to lay oneself bare and completely expose one’s true feelings, and that, the trope of the rom-com promises us, is the only way to reach the Happy Ending. One simply has to trust that their feelings are treated with respect and care, and — god forbid! — maybe even reciprocated. One has to, in good faith, take that leap.

“In good faith”: It’s a term I think about a lot. In “Crazy Rich Asians,” Rachel gives up her winning mahjong hand in good faith, wanting the best for Nick and his family, and that’s the reason she wins Eleanor’s approval. The villains of the movie, which include most of the Young family, are, conversely, acting in bad faith, assuming that Rachel is out to steal their family fortune, smiling to her face even as they gossip behind her back and adorn her bed with fish guts.

I admit that I had been seated in that premiere in aggressively bad faith. I went in prepared to hate it, because I was protective of my own Singapore, the very real one which I existed in and loved, and felt disconcerted when what was reflected on the screen was nothing like my own reality.

I watched “Crazy Rich Asians” again four years later, on the plane from Singapore to my freshman year, two overweight luggages with my new college address somewhere deep in the airplane’s cargo belly. To my shock, I found myself bawling on the plane ride — at the mahjong scene, at the Mandarin cover of “Yellow,” even once when they panned to a B-roll of a street that I happened to recognize.

My opinion on it had changed, and it keeps changing every time I watch it. Today it is one of my favorite films. That is true despite the fact that I continue to find the third act rushed, and that it continues not to be the version of Singapore that I know.

I can’t even articulate the reasons why I love it so much now (a reviewer’s nightmare!), but it’s just a feeling that it creates in me — the understanding that I am viewing something that is an inaccurate work of fiction, but is also a labor of love, and is someone’s rendering of my home, a place that I love and miss. That is something that is never accounted for in a singular review, I think — the fact that a film can grow on person. That as a person grows, their perceptions on a piece of art will change too.

To overanalyze “Crazy Rich Asians” is, perhaps, to be overly sincere about something maudlin; perhaps a waste of one’s precious time; perhaps to love something without logic. But what matters, I hope, is that I’m watching it in good faith.

—Outgoing Editor-at-Large Angelina X. Ng still doesn’t know how to play mahjong, despite her best efforts. If you are a Crazy Rich Asian and would like to share the wealth, please contact her at [email protected]. Follow her on X @angelinaxng.