It’s a good lie is part of the main foundation of Lulu Wang’s film The Farewell about a Chinese family in a medical crisis. Based on her own grandmother’s experience, Wang has written and directed a meaningful film about what happens when a family with different viewpoints and lives has to reunite and support a cause for the greater good even if they truly don’t want to.
Nai Nai (meaning paternal grandmother) is the head of the family. We see her in the beginning of the film talking long distance from China to her beloved granddaughter Billi, played by the wonderful Awkwafina, in New York. Nai Nai is seen at the doctor’s office being tested, and later we see her younger sister receiving the news that Nai Nai has terminal cancer. Interestingly, in China the law does not require doctors to give patients their diagnoses so her sister can inquire about the results without her sibling being told. Once the call goes out to the family about the test results, the relatives start gathering and preparing to return to China.
Wang does an amazing job of telling her story through expressions, gestures, sighs, and minor movements that carry larger implications. Shorter statements by characters Westerners would be waiting on for more detail but really that’s all they are going to get – verbally. Viewers need to fill in the blanks themselves. Billi and her parents have a stilted relationship – we get the sense they are disappointed with her progress in life and it may have always been the case. They are not as emotional as their Americanized daughter. When they receive the grave news, Billi walks in on her father suffering over it and at least on the surface it doesn’t seem as if they were going to share the news. This is because the overall family has decided to create a ruse that is used in China in instances when a beloved figure is dying. They conceal the diagnosis from the patient.
Chinese people have a saying: When people get cancer, they die.
Jian – Billi's mother
This is done to allow the loved one to live out their days free of stress and worry about dying. Billi’s parents don’t want to tell her because she will be too emotional and reveal everything to Nai Nai. Billi, who in her daily life (unbeknownst to her parents) tells small lies about not receiving a job offer and being in debt, cannot be trusted to participate in the good lie. You think one’s life belongs to one’s self, her uncle tells her not long after she arrives in China to visit her grandmother. Chiding her on her Western thinking.
The family’s excuse to visit with Nai Nai is a carefully crafted wedding of her grandson to his girlfriend of three months. It’s a reason to have everyone come together and spend an extended amount of time as one. Wang’s film is decidedly not a grim one since she offers captivating, delightful moments where you laugh at characters’ reactions. It’s a running gag that Hao Hao and Aiko – Billi’s cousin and girlfriend – know little if no Chinese, are getting married after three months, and Aiko seems to have no clue why things are being done yet goes along with it. There’s a cemetery scene where the family visits with the long dead patriarch and it is funny, poignant, silly, and feels normal in a sweet way.
It’s a good lie. Most families in China would choose not to tell her.
Doctor's statement to Billi at at checkup in the hospital with Nai Nai.
You’ll have to see the film to learn what is revealed in the end, but one of the best statements says a lot about it when Shuzen Zhao as Nai Nai says: Life is not just about what you do. It’s more about how you do it.
By Jennifer Graham
More reviews:
The Vulture: The Farewell Is a Big Arrival for Director Lulu Wang
Roger Ebert: The Farewell by Lulu Wang
