Things went smoothly as they made the festival circuit, because "it's an American festival, so it's never going to leave the country, and your grandma doesn't go on the internet, she doesn't read English, so it's fine.". A script began to make the rounds. So she fashioned the film accordingly, resisting requests from American and Chinese backers to make a broader, more sentimental film. It was a little nerve-racking having her so close to the production, she admits. [16], The Farewell grossed $17.7 million in the United States and Canada, and $5.4 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $23.1 million,[2] against a production budget of $3 million. Come along for the ride! The events dramatized in the movie happened to Wang in 2013. Wang's mother told her over the phone, not in person like in the movie. Xiaojie Tan dreamed of traveling the world and celebrating her 50th birthday with her daughter.. As Shuzhen, who played Nai Nai in the film, also told IndieWire in a separate interview, the whole cast and crew had to take part in the family's lie, too. Can you spoil The Farewell? But what about the real grandmother that the story is based on? She explored the possibility of turning her life into a film, but when she couldnt secure enough funding, she insteadtold her storyon an episode ofThis American Life,which featured interviews with the other members of her family minus the real Nai Nai, whowas still alive, andstillclueless about her fatal diagnosis. Well, she remembers telling him, there was this one thing about my grandmother. When the movie went into production last year, not only did Wang cast her real aunt (who instigated the lie), she shot it two blocks from her grandmothers neighbourhood in Changchun and, let her visit the set. Lulu Wang's Grandmother Has Just Learned That 'The Farewell' Is About Her. When Lulu Wang's grandmother was diagnosed with a terminal illness, her family in China decided not to tell her, inspiring the US-based director to make culture-clash drama The Farewell. It will be an all-Asian cast, I want to shoot in my grandmothers town, and my number one market is not the Chinese market the minute we try to change it to fit both sides of the equation, were sunk. And they just said, OK, well try to aim for it being a Sundance film then. They knew what the sweet spot was. Both Big Beach and Weitzs production company Depth of Field ended up coming on board. Spend more than a few minutes in Wangs company, and you realize that she has zero interest in anything even close to pandering. [9][10] Filming also took place in New York. And so that was the moment for me that ignited the scene and what the climax of the movie was. Based on Wangs own life, the film centres on a Chinese American womans family refusal to tell the grandmother that she has cancer. "We couldn't tell her what the movie was about!" To spare Nai Nai from the stress of knowing her condition, the family flies to China and stages an elaborate fake wedding in order to see her one last time. Films take so long to make. This is sort of true. When Billi reveals the Guggenheim Fellowship rejection to her, Nai Nai encourages Billi to keep an open mind and not get hung up on this failure, "don't be the bull endlessly ramming its horns into the corner of the room." Written and directed by the Chinese filmmaker, The Farewell casts rapper-turned-actress Awkwafina in her first leading role as Billi, a Chinese-American student playing a form of Wang herself. Maybe I was hoping for that to make the story more interesting, but I never got that. She decided to write out the tale of deceiving her grandmother as a short story. -This American Life, All of the doctors predicted that Lulu Wang's Nai Nai had three months left to live after the stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis in 2013. Why is it in Mandarin? Now The Farewellis opening in theaters around the country and Nai Nai is still, happily, aliveand well, now in her mid-80s. I think my reaction was, The girl who did My Vagwants to read for this?! "[31] Hong Kong playwright Jingan Young commented on the film's depiction of the differences between western and Chinese family values, claiming that "the familys decision to tell a 'good lie' is a metaphor for the collective delusion of living under the Chinese Communist party. And the title of the movie isDon't Tell Herin Chinese. The result was a segment on an episode of the long-running radio series titled In Defense of Ignorance that debuted in April 2016. Scene Stealer: The True Lies of Elisabeth Finch, Part 2. Once its released in China, thats going to be trickier, but that date hasnt been set yet so everyone is like, Well deal with that problem when it actually comes.. Sitting on the floor, Billi shares the isolation she felt when her parents left the rest of their family to move to America. Shed finished Crazy Rich Asians but it hadnt come out. One night, her uncle, Haibin, contends that the lie allows the family to bear the emotional burden of the diagnosis, rather than Nai Nai herselfa practice of collectivism that Haibin acknowledges differs from the individualistic values common in Western culture. (After that, it was, You did this once already and youre so young Ang Lee didnt make his first movie until he was in his thirties and he was supported by his wife. That was always their reference point.) But Wang didnt relish the idea of repeating that disappointment or selling out. You cant tell me what its about. #ggforeignfilms #goldenglobesStill haven't subscribed to Golden Globes on YouTube? Lulu learned five years ago that her grandmother, her father's mother or, in Chinese, her Nai Nai had stage-four lung cancer; the doctor said she had three months left to live. Oh, she already wants to see it, says Wang. This news won't be shocking to anyone who listened to Wang'sThis American Lifeepisode from 2016 about the same subject, but it nevertheless acts as a welcome surprise given that the conclusion otherwise felt tragically cathartic. Producer Chris Weitz (About a Boy), who along with his brother, Paul, runs Depth of Field, the production company behind such films as Nick and Norahs Infinite Playlist and A Single Man, was driving down the 10 freeway in Los Angeles with his wife, actress Mercedes Martinez, when the two happened upon Wangs story. Though much ofThe Farewellgrapples with mortality, the point of Wang's piece is not what happens to Nai Nai, even though it's nice to know there's a happy ending. ! And wed go, Oh, you know, us leaving for America, and coming back, and theres a wedding, and culture clashes! Oh, OK. All technically true. When I come across people who have [original] stories they want to tell, they feel like they have to tell those stories in some other medium first in order to get any traction.. She also said yes when Peter Saraf, the cofounder of the production company Big Beach, proposed a lets-get-to-know-each-other chat. As for the fact that Nai Nai has outlived her initial diagnoses by more than five years, Wang toldThe New York Timesthather dad was like, See, we did the right thing! Right or wrong, its a wonderful feeling when that final title card comes up, and you see the real Nai Nai practicing her tai chi moves. Theres a second part to this anecdote, Wang points out with a smile, one that she swears is 100-percent authentic. That lie is told by a family to their beloved grandmotherNai Nai (Zhao Shuzhen), who has been diagnosed with lung cancer. Dramatic Competition section at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival[4] and was theatrically released in the United States on July 12, 2019, by A24. But look, it says in the newspaper it's calledDon't Tell Her, and that's why you didn't tell me, because I am the 'her' of the 'don't tell her.'" Filmmaker, alumna Lulu Wang '05 will discuss "The Farewell" at virtual event March 25. No, at least not according to Wang, who says that she told her grandmother that the film was about their family, emigrating to America, and returning for a reunion in the form of a wedding. But while Wang's family's story has been broadcast on This American Life and on theater screens nationwide, The Farewell still hasn't hit China, and per IndieWire, the real Nai Naiwho is still alive despite the three-month prognosis given to her in 2013still hasn't seen it nor been told what exactly the movie is all about, though she does know it's "loosely based" on the family. Yes. Not just limiting as a filmmaker like limiting as a human being., When Wang first started pitching what would become The Farewell to producers, it was that type of film what the director calls My Big Fat Chinese Family Wedding that they expected to sign on for. After all, her grandmother had lied to her grandfather when he was diagnosed with liver cancer when Wang was 10-years-old. Told by doctors that Nai Nai has three months to live, the family decides to hide her diagnosis from her and gathers at their home in China to say goodbye under the pretense of a wedding. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. But if I sort of compromised, and it didnt do well, and I left the industry, I would forever regret it.. A wedding for Billi's cousin from Japan, Hao Hao, has been planned in China as an excuse to unite the family to spend what is expected to be one last time with Nai Nai. Lulu Wang's indie hit, starring Awkwafina and Zhao Shuzhen, may be an awards contender, but that doesn't mean the film is easily categorized. Shooting around the real Nai Nai created an extra challenge for the cast and crew who had to make sure they didn't let anything slip. And so she said to little Nai Nai, her sister, who plays herself in the movie, she said, I just thought that you were really daft, because you went and shot a movie, you went to the premiere in New York, and you come back and you cant tell me anything about it. Excerpt from the Golden Globe Foreign-Language Film Symposium presented by the American Cinematheque and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association on Saturday, January 4, 2020 at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Filming there allowed her to spend a lot more time with her grandmother (NPR). Then she made a movie about it so it went through the entire history of our family, and my grandma read it. It's true that doctors often break bad news to members of the family instead of the patients themselves. As much as The Farewell is about confronting loss, it's also distinctly about place. That was the most beautiful part of this. Her Little Nai Nai, Grandmas younger sister, who first perpetrates the lie and coordinates the reunion, was played by Hong Lu Wangs actual great-aunt. Speaking about the inspiration of The Farewell, Wang said her own struggle in balancing American and Chinese culture led her to make the film. Based on the real life . So I feel like in a way, I now have an adult relationship with China, with the city.". It's a family drama centering on a young Chinese . So making this film became part of the lie. At the end of the film, Billi returns to New York. If someone tells you theres this crazy set up where you cant tell your grandma and theres a wedding, you expect there will be a moment of reconciliation and catharsis the things that you see in the movies. Then Lum sent back a tape. Based on the real life experiences of director Lulu Wang and starring Awkwafina, the film follows a family trying to hide a cancer diagnosis from their elderly matriarch. That immediacy of storytelling reminded me why I became a storyteller in the first place. [My grandmother] actually just found out, Wang said. But she was suffering a crisis of faith in the film industry she had worked so hard to be a part of. Wang's Nai Nai is still alive today but hasn't seen the film because she still doesn't know. Id also come to accept that it wasnt my decision; it was my familys decision. Soon, Nora Lum, a.k.a. Her grandmother was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer in 2013. But at the same time, when I talked to her like we might shoot in a neighboring town she was like, 'What the hell, you're going to come back in town and shoot a movie and not even do it here? You can't tell me what it's about. I don't envy Wang in finally having that conversation to her grandmother about the diagnosis, but at least she could finally see the movie that is getting her granddaughter so much acclaim. THE FAREWELL director Lulu Wang tells the harrowing tale about how she kept the content of her film about her grandmother a secret from her grandmother while shooting it right under her nose in her grandmothers neighborhood in China. [28] Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair wrote, "Wang movingly tells not just a story about the negotiations of familial love, but also of the immigrant experience, of revisiting one's homeland to, in some senses, say goodbye to it. An old woman in China is talking on the phone with her granddaughter in New York, Billi. The website's critics' consensus reads: "The Farewell deftly captures complicated family dynamics with a poignant, well-acted drama that marries cultural specificity with universally relatable themes. Hed seen her movie, loved her voice, was interested in working with her on something. But even asThe Farewell took America by storm, it stayed quiet enough on the Eastern front that Lulu Wang's real grandmother, upon whom the film is based, never found out the truth of her cancer diagnosis. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google, This website and its associated newspaper are members of Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO). Rather than revealing the news directly to Wang's 80-year-old grandmother, doctors instead told her grandmother's sister (Wang's Great-Aunt Hong Lu) the news, who passed it along to the family. There was just one problem. [15] A fully Mandarin-subtitled version of the film played in select theaters on September 8, 2019. You dont really have any agency. Like Wang herself had been, Billi is a struggling artist living in New York. Lulu Wang. [26], Eric Kohn of IndieWire gave the film an A grade and praised Awkwafina's performance, writing, "As a Chinese-American grappling with the traditionalism of her past and its impact on the future, she's an absorbing engine for the movie's introspective look at a most unusual family reunion. "She gave me gifts and treated me like family and was so energetic and so full of life that you could not tell she has any kind of illness, period.". It was 2016, and Lulu Wang was done with filmmaking. Did I end up conscripting an entire films cast and crew into this lie? To Wang, her story was nothing like that. Wang says that one plus is that the lie gave birth to the film, which was shot in her family's hometown of Changchun. Maybe she could get it published in The New Yorker, she thought. After Wangs short film Touch played a few festivals, she found herself talking to the radio shows producer, Neil Drumming. Lulu Wang's Nai Nai did join the Chinese Army at age 14 to escape an arranged marriage. Energetically, she wasnt going to fit in with everybody else. "I said something that she responded to which was: 'In China, I felt whole because I had my entire family and then I came to the U.S.,'" Wang says, "She was saying she's never felt whole in her life. [19] It continued to expand in the following weeks, making $2.4 million from 426 theaters and then $2.2 million from 705 theaters. Released in July, The Farewell centers on a family telling a big lie in order to keep an even bigger secret. Wang is writing the script now. The Farewell (Chinese: ; pinyin: Bi Gos T; lit. Moderated by Silvia Bizio. Wang claims her grandmother eventually found out from discussing the movie with her little sister, who plays herself in the movie. [20][21] The film expanded further to over 800 theaters in the next few weeks, $1.4 million from 861 theaters, $882,623 from 816 theaters and $841,414 from 891 theaters. In New York, shes a strong independent person with a lot of agency, but then you go home and you have no agency and you're not even allowed to talk because you might spill the beans. Her grandmother finally told him the truth in the hospital three days before he died. When asked about her own grandmother, Wang revealed that she only recently found out about her cancer. The Farewell's release in China was recently delayed, which Variety suggested could be due to the film's likelihood of winning upcoming major American movie awards and potentially boosting its potential success in China. Brooklyn, US. Chinese or American audiences? Initially, I wanted her to play Nai Nai, the director admits. Yes. I went to bars -- I never went to bars as a 6 year old, obviously. The Farewell true story reveals that Awkwafina's character in the movie, Billi, is based on writer/director Lulu Wang herself. Matt Singer Published: July 19, 2019. It wasn't just that she could now frequent bars; she had a newfound agency. 2023 Rolling Stone, LLC. This story contains spoilers forThe Farewelland also real life. In a Slate interview, director Lulu Wang revealed thatThe Farewell led to her own grandmother discovering she had cancer. I was actually making a screwball romantic comedy when this happened to me, says Wang, referring to her debut feature, Posthumous (2014). I was like, 'What?' The family got a second opinion, and then a third. Hong became the de facto authority for her fellow performers on whether the interactions of the screen family felt like the real thing; she and Shuzhen began hanging out together off-set a lot and, according to Lulu, started calling each other sister. The director had made good on the promise to shoot The Farewell in her still-living grandmothers hometown of Chungchun, ensuring that a high level of authenticity would be built in to the story. And, yet, as much as Billi disagrees with her family's decision, she also feels an inexorable pull toward the country in which she was born. Later, she sees a similar bird resting on the windowsill of her Chinese hotel room.