• Crazy Rich Asians

    Romantic comedies get a bad rep because the obstacle between the lovers is a joke. There’s a misunderstanding, a misreading of a text message, and then a sudden spiral that only a dramatic gesture in the final scene can fix. Hence the trope that almost all rom-com conflicts could be resolved with an honest conversation. But in Crazy Rich Asians, adapted from Kevin Kwan’s novel by Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim’s script, the romance comes up against a legitimately formidable roadblock: the Asian mother-in-law, and the cultural baggage of a whole other world. The heart-first ethos of the genre is…