From Jeremy Kibler

A studio comedy written and directed by women of color and starring people of color is all good stuff and worth celebrating. The movie, Crazy Rich Asians screenwriter Adele Lim’s directorial debut, attached to that representation is also damn good in its own right. Inevitably a successor to Bridesmaids, Bad Moms, and Girls Trip but finding its own inspiration through cultural specificity, Joy Ride is raucously funny and heartfelt in the same breath. It should no longer come as a surprise that the ladies can be as unapologetically funny, boisterous, and horny as the always-misbehaving dudes.

Ashley Park (Netflix’s Emily in Paris) stars as Audrey, a stable, overachieving attorney who has always had her shit together. Adopted as a child (her parents are nicely played by Annie Mumolo and David Denman), she was one of two Chinese girls in a very white Seattle neighborhood called, of all things, White Hills. The other was Lolo (Sherry Cola), Audrey’s best friend since the playground. Always the bold and rebellious one, Lolo now lives in Audrey’s guesthouse and makes her body-positivity penis art. When Audrey has to seal a deal with an important Chinese client in Beijing, she turns a work trip into a girls trip and invites Lolo as her translator. Tagging along is Lolo’s socially awkward yet occasionally exuberant cousin Dead Eye (Sabrina Wu), and then comes along Audrey’s former college roommate Kat (Stephanie Hsu), an on-the-rise actress shooting a new TV show in Beijing. It’s a work trip, but Audrey is eventually convinced to track down her birth mother and loosen up along the way. Anything that could go wrong does, and hilarity actually does ensue!

A raunchy R-rated comedy can sometimes come off strained or desperate as if having something to prove. Thankfully, Joy Ride embraces and earns its R-rating without sacrificing characterization. Audrey, Lolo, Kat, and Deadeye each fulfill certain character types, but all of them feel like real people even when working the blue material. Playing Audrey as the responsible one with a good head on her shoulders, Ashley Park might have the toughest task. She has to be the perky grounding force but also be a fish out of water and be game for the comic shenanigans, and Park is terrific in straddling all modes. Lolo is the brashly confident one, and comedian Sherry Cola is an uninhibited comedic dynamo with energy to spare and destined to be a star. 

Proving herself to be a treasure of a talent in Everything Everywhere All At Once, Stephanie Hsu is fearless in what she’s willing to do here as the snooty Kat. Formerly hypersexual, Kat has vowed to be abstinent for her hunky Christian actor fiancé Clarence (Desmond Chiam), but that proves to be quite the challenge. Hsu is certainly game when it comes to the physical humor, and she even gets the most inappropriate gag involving a tattoo. And then there’s Deadeye, a true wild card. They’re more than a little eccentric but entirely their chaotic self and have an obsession for K-Pop (which does lead to easily the film’s biggest laugh involving the nastiest of Cardi B songs). Deadeye could have just been a walking punchline or a collection of quirks, but Sabrina Wu brings a vulnerability and a sweet decency to this one-of-a-kind character.

The script (co-written by director Adele Lim and co-writers Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao) is not merely about women behaving badly, although there is no shortage of situational lunacy. There is a wildly funny train encounter with a drug dealer (Meredith Hagner, a one-scene hoot), as well as a hilariously racy sequence cross-cutting between each of the four characters with a member of the Chinese Basketball Association. When it comes to the outrageous humor, though, Lim never makes the same joke twice, or if she does, it’s presented differently. 

The story also delves into what it must feel like for someone not to know where they come from, primarily Audrey, who’s always been called “white” by Lolo but remains the token Asian in her all-white, all-male law firm. Without the specificity of this idea, the script might’ve still made for a likable road movie, but it’s more substantive than that. There is definitely some Bridesmaids in its DNA, which only strengthens the universal notion of friends feeling threatened among other friends and comparing themselves. It still feels like a screenwriting cliché to give characters a temporary falling-out around the third act before everything is mended. However, it’s all about the execution, and director Lim does strike a more honest and delicate balance at this point for it to all feel earned and not swing jarringly from bawdy to touchy-feely. 

Joy Ride may not be sporting an original title, but it shouldn’t get too confused with the “other” one, 2001’s gripping CB-radio thriller with Paul Walker, Steve Zahn, and Leelee Sobieski. Sharing the “Joy” with 1993’s culturally groundbreaking The Joy Luck Club this is a party, and a manageable 92-minute one to boot, but it knows when to simmer down, sweeten, and find emotional honesty. Come for the tattooed-vagina gags and body-packing of so many drugs, stay for the thematic through-lines about friendship and cultural identity. 

Joy Ride hits theaters on July 7, 2023. 

Rating: 4/5

Follow Jeremy at @JKiblerFilm