Joy Ride Review

NOTE: SPOILERS WITHIN FOR JOY RIDE!

NOT the 2001 Paul Walker, Steve Zahn, and Leelee Sobieski horror movie about a maniac trucker that I have seen just… an irresponsible number of times in my life.

(Also, has anyone checked in on Leelee Sobieski in a while? Did she grow up to look exactly like 1990’s Helen Hunt after all?)

This 2023 outing of the same name is the directorial debut of Adele Lim, best known as the writer of Crazy Rich Asians, a comedy from a few years ago I quite enjoyed. Crazy Rich Asians was little more than a modern day fairy tale, but it had sharp enough writing and a spectacular enough cast that I still really dug everything about it. There is something to be said for charm and old-school romantic notions. And a catty Michelle Yeoh!

Whereas CRA had a huge, star-studded ensemble, three of the four leads of Joy Ride are going to be unknown to a lot of filmgoing audiences. There is the recently-Oscar-nominated Stephanie Hsu from Everything Everywhere All At Once, sure, but with her are Ashley Park (a star of a great many musicals, but her on-screen roles are limited), Sherry Cola (probably most known as a voice from Turning Red), and Sabrina Wu (a comedian and screenwriter).

(You’ll recognize a few other talents like Ronny Chieng and Daniel Dae Kim, but they have limited roles)

Joy Ride is also far raunchier than Crazy Rich Asians, at least to my recollection. The latter was sweet, even if it did have modern humor and sensibilities. Joy Ride is almost one sex or drugs or vomit humor joke after another. If you remember the movie Blockers from a few years ago, it’s very much like that. Kind of a female empowerment, “We Can Do Sex-Based Comedies, too” kind of thing.

Which I guess also makes it a lot like Bridesmaids. Not sure why I went to Blockers first, though Blockers is more SEX-based than Bridesmaids, which is just more generically crude.

So there were reasons after all!

The central story here is of adopted immigrant Audrey and her lifelong best friend Lolo. They quickly become fast pals as elementary school children and remain close throughout their lives. As adults, Audrey is a successful attorney, and Lolo lives in a poolhouse on her property as a sex-positive artist who makes no money.

Audrey is tasked with going to China to close a deal for her company, and Lolo sees this as an opportunity for her friend to seek out her birth mother (though Audrey has no interest in that). Lolo tags along as Audrey’s interpreter and brings her cousin, the K-Pop obsessed Deadeye.

In China, they meet up with Audrey’s college roommate, Kat, a soap opera star over whom Lolo is extremely jealous. The quartet head out to the club to meet with Audrey’s clients, and, of course, everything breaks down from there, putting Audrey in a position where she HAS to find her birth mother to be able to close the deal.

I’m… not sure WHY the movie is called Joy Ride, unless it’s a callback to The Joy Luck Club, a movie from thirty years ago (YES! 1993 was THIRTY YEARS AGO) about four Asian-American and/or Asian women. The poster features the phrase “Four Friends. One Trip. No Luck”, so… that does seem likely. That’s a somewhat obscure reference if so, though.

There is definitely no joy-riding in this movie.

Unlike the Paul Walker flick, which absolutely has joy-riding!

That is one of those phrases that the more you use it, the less sense it makes. Joy-ride. Weird. ANYWAY…

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+ There is an incredibly predictable third act reveal that lands hard nonetheless because it is so heart-wrenching and because Ashley Park and Daniel Dae Kim just act the hell out of it. I won’t get into what it is here, but you should be able to see it coming. And yet, it still gets over because by the time you get there, the movie has torn Audrey down and put her in the worst situation possible… just for things to collapse even further out from under her. I was invested, and I cared about her character enough that I bought all the way in.

It’s also the start of her character’s redemption arc because, like I said, she is at her lowest, so there’s nowhere to go but up. It’s filmmaking 101 for character arcs, but when it’s done this well, it works.

+ In addition to the aforementioned heart the movie shows, there are a few absolutely stand-out comedic scenes across the flick, most notably a montage of activity that sees the girls accidentally decimate Baron Davis’ traveling basketball team. Surrounded by hot, available men, the girls give into their carnal urges and put them through the ringer. In particular, Audrey’s three-way with two of the players is hilarious (“Do you like hair pulling”?), as is the way she puts them on the shelf.

– The first act here is ROUGH. All of the humor feels forced, and you can just see the immense effort everyone put into making this a women-led, Apatow-influenced movie (the latter of which is no surprise when you see Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are attached as producers). Especially regarding the Lolo character. It’s no fault of Sherry Cola’s, but the writing on her early just never feels natural. She’s a caricature of the characters from Rogen’s 2000’s era movies. The movie is basically hanging up giant signs that point at her and say “ISN’T SHE SO CRUDE AND VULGAR? ISN’T THAT HILARIOUS?! PLEASE LAUGH!”. It did not work for me at all.

The movie thankfully settles into a groove once all four women are together and starting their journey. It gets a lot funnier and more heartfelt. And the Lolo character feels more genuine when she is part of the team than when the movie is introducing her. But the ride there was bumpy. I honestly might have enjoyed the rest of the movie more if the first act hadn’t been such a miss; it took me a while to get into the flow.

– There’s really nothing brand new here. This movie isn’t conquering new territory. It’s just giving Asian women a chance to pull off the same kind of comedy straight white dudes have been doing regularly since the 80’s. And even then, hits like Bridesmaids and Blockers still beat it to the female empowerment angle of things.

And that’s fine. Not everything needs to feel like undiscovered lands when you watch a movie. There is comfort in turning a flick on, knowing the exact arc the story is going to take, and just letting yourself enjoy the moments. But it might have been nicer if this effort had maybe had a surprise or two in store for us, you know?

6.0

The final score: review Average

The 411

It starts off with all the fury of a Sunday drive, but Joy Ride does eventually find its route and hit the gas. Even then, it becomes more a movie of great moments than of total cohesion or consistency. But the great moments are potent enough that it's still well worth the time.