Sabrina Wu | Bouquets & Brickbats

08/07/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Viewed via an Unlimited ‘Secret Screening,’ Joy Ride is a film we probably wouldn’t bother to book in normal circumstances – but I’m all for stepping out of my comfort zone now and then. This is a rumbustious comedy, a sort of Asian-American Bridesmaids.

Audrey (Ashley Park) is working in a Seattle law firm and jumps at the chance of going to China to oversee an important business deal. She has no memories of her birthplace because she was adopted as a baby by a white American couple, but she’s still besties with Lolo (Sherry Cola), her friend and protector ever since her arrival in the USA. Lolo is an artist, who specialises in objects inspired by human genitalia – something that writer/director Adele Lim seems to think is hilarious, and something on which we’ll have to agree to differ.

Would it be a good idea for Audrey to take Lolo to China with her? Clearly it wouldn’t, but of course she does anyway. Along for the ride comes Lolo’s hapless pal, ‘Deadeye’ (Sabrina Wu), a non-binary computer nerd obsessed with K Pop. Deadeye is a strangely adorable character and one of the best things about this patchy tale.

Once in Beijing, the trio meet up with mutual friend, Kat (Stephanie Hsu), an actor currently filming a popular television series, with a Hollywood deal in the pipeline. Kat and Lolo have an adversarial relationship, which is intensified when Kat introduces her hunky fiancee, Clarence (Desmond Chiam), a devout Christian who has no knowledge of Kat’s sexually active past, nor of the fact that she sports a memorable tattoo in an intimate place.

When Audrey meets the Chinese businessman with whom she needs to broker a deal, he’s clearly unimpressed when she admits to knowing nothing of her origins. When Lolo suggests it might be a good idea for Audrey to reconnect with her birth mother, in order to save the deal, the four friends promptly set off on an odyssey to the place where Audrey was born…

On paper, it sounds like a complicated scenario, but essentially, it’s an excuse for a breathless romp that meanders through a variety of locations, occasionally managing to be genuinely funny. More often than not, however, it confuses the lead characters’ insatiable appetites for sex and cocaine with humour. You could argue that there have been lots of films in which male characters follow similar trajectories, but if I’m honest, I don’t care much for them either. I’d also be more impressed if Joy Ride‘s ultimate message wasn’t one of those fridge magnet statements about friendship and forgiveness. And the problem is, you can see it coming from miles away.

The best bits here are the observations about different cultures, the way that a person’s upbringing influences the decisions they make throughout life. Trying to find a train carriage, for instance, Audrey shies away from sharing with Chinese people and instead assumes the lone white female on the train is more trustworthy. Big mistake.

Ultimately, Joy Ride delivers pretty much what it says in the title: a silly, frenetic chase through a series of unlikely situations, sometimes hitting the jackpot, but mostly missing by miles. A potentially funny sequence where the foursome try to impersonate a K Pop band (in order to get through an airport checkout without passports) is full of promise, but is squandered when they can only manage to deliver a truly forgettable few lines. Still, I’m hardly in the demographic for this. If Hsu’s recent success in Everything Everywhere All at Once is anything to go by, this could do serious business.

2.9 stars

Philip Caveney

10/08/21

Pleasance, EICC, Lomond, Edinburgh

As we enter the venue we’re offered a bag of freshly-made popcorn – and, as we take our seats, the appetising aroma of the stuff is all-pervading. The only thing to alert is to the fact that we’re not just here to watch a movie is a series of trigger warnings unfolding on the screen in front of us…

In July 2012, in a movie theatre in Boulder Colorado, during a premiere of The Dark Knight Rises, a teenage assailant entered the auditorium armed with assault weapons and started firing. In a matter of minutes, he had killed twelve people, while seventy others were injured, fifty eight of them by gunfire. He later pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity and is now serving twelve life sentences in prison.

Screen 9 is a powerful and compelling slice of verbatim theatre, based on the real life testimonies of four survivors. To say that it’s harrowing may be understating things somewhat.

Katy (Sabrina Wu) was with her boyfriend that night and he died protecting her. Mary (Hannah Shunk-Hoffing) was seriously wounded and lost one of her sons. Alex (David Austin-Barnes) saw a close friend murdered. but used his medical training to help the wounded. And Jonny (Alex Rextrew) was ‘lucky’ – he and his girlfriend escaped any physical injury, though the psychological effects of the night would stay with him forever. As the four tell their stories, I am drawn into the edgy uncertainty of their situation, particularly when the performers move to seats amongst the audience to give their accounts from somewhere behind me, their overlapping dialogue becoming ever more confused. As they speak, the screen dissolves into a series of uncertain blurred images and a thick haze fills the room. This is not for the faint-hearted.

Obviously, I’m glad I wasn’t at that fateful screening, but this uncanny retelling brings home some of the horror of the situation – and, when, during a break, the characters are drawn to discussing the subject of gun control, it’s fascinating to note that they all have different points of view. Katy wants firearms to be banned outright, but Jonny is still arguing for the right to bear arms, pointing out that if he’d had a weapon that night, he might have been able to save people’s lives. The intent of this is clear. Gun control is a complicated issue and the fact that the survivors of such a horrifying event are still able to have a rational and understanding conversation about it demonstrates the complexity of the problem. This is a subject that still needs to be fully explored.

Piccolo Theatre have created something very special here and Kate Barton’s direction takes an audience to places it may not want to go. While this is nobody’s idea of a fun night out at the Fringe, it’s nonetheless an enervating and thought-provoking theatrical experience, not to be missed.

5 stars

Philip Caveney