Yeah, I’d say the title pretty much sums it up.
Between No Hard Feelings (2023) – check out my review, here – and now Joy Ride (2023), summer 2023 is shaping up to be a season filled with wildly entertaining, raunchy original comedies. Comedies that also manage to clock in around 90 minutes, AKA the perfect runtime for a movie! Is the 90 minute original fun comedy back? I think it might be! The fact these movies also happen to be genuinely great is just the cherry on top. The trailer made this movie look like an explosion of high octane raucous comedy and that’s exactly what was delivered. Though the performances were fantastic there are certain parts of the narrative that feel either tired or unnecessary which is the only reason I didn’t LOVE Joy Ride. However, trust and believe that this is still a wonderfully wacky movie that deserves to be seen and loved by as many people as possible.
Joy Ride follows Audrey Sullivan, a Chinese-American lawyer who as a child was adopted by white parents. When her job sends her to China to impress an important client, Audrey is joined by her three chaotic friends as they get into all sorts of trouble and also end up searching for Audrey’s birth mother.
Joy Ride is directed by Adele Lim. Though this is Lim’s directorial debut, I was surprised to learn she has previously worked as the screenwriter for Crazy Rich Asians (2018), Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) and wrote the English dub for many episodes of Digimon: Digital Monsters (1999 – present)! It’s also written by Family Guy (1999 – present) writers Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao. That makes a ton of sense because from start to finish the movie is a rollercoaster of humour that will have your guts busting one second and then have you wanting to throw up the next. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just shocking! Speaking of, we really need to stop letting vomit scenes happen in movies. It’s always disgusting and never as funny as the writer hopes. Now, what SHOULD happen in every movie is racists getting a swift kick to the face. As soon as the movie started with that I was absolutely sold on the fun ride I was about to take.
The movie is a ton of fun and the comedy aspects of it totally land. But I had a problem with the other parts of the movie, specifically the driving force of the plot being, “we can’t really do business with you because we don’t know your birth family.” Shockingly, I’m not an expert on Chinese business deals, but that seems a bit far-fetched to me. Honestly, the movie could have cut the whole business aspect of the friends trip and just had it be a trip to find Audrey’s birth mom. The tonal whiplash is a lot. As a result it affects the overall quality of the writing and it makes it feel disjointed and all over the place. Joy Ride is a great comedy but the overly sentimental beats feel out of place. This is a movie that goes from, “full frontal shot of a devil tattoo on a vagina and cocaine up the ass!” to, “here’s a video your birth mom made saying she’s proud of you and loves you before she died from a terminal illness.” I would have preferred just a straight up comedy.
That being said, Joy Ride still manages to be a surprisingly poignant and heartfelt look at the Asian-American experience. Joy Ride is anchored by rapid-fire jokes that are sure to have audiences enjoying the movie, but the relatable and outlandishly funny characters are what’s going to make them fall in love with it. The performances in this movie are fantastic. Each cast member delivers a fantastically funny performance but the standout is undoubtedly Stephanie Hsu. I was so excited to see her in a comedy! As Kat, she plays a character SOOOOO different from her amazing turn in Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) and it proves that she’s going to have a long career playing a variety of uniquely different characters. She plays a prim princess with a raunchy checkered past so well that Hsu deserves another Oscar nomination for her facial reactions alone. Well, that and her hilariouly genuine reading of the line, “it’s not a Bop It, it’s my asshole!” She needs to be in every project possible from here on out. Especially if they’re movies that include MULTIPLE sexy half-naked men. Seriously…you guys, I think this movie features one of the most genuinely steamy sex scenes I’ve ever seen in a comedy!
Joy Ride is definitely the kind of movie that you never want to watch with your parents but will happily watch again and again with your best friends. This R-rated comedy goes all out, never holding back or letting up on the jokes. Rest assured this is a ride well worth taking.
Have you seen Joy Ride?
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