In the dirty-minded yet sweet-toothed comedy Joy Ride, athletic threesomes and balloons of cocaine stuffed up internal cavities help resolve the tricky battles of identity and self-image. Crazy Rich Asians screenwriter Adele Lim, in her directorial debut, works off a script by Family Guy’s Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao, for a film about reckless, luckless people you can’t help but fall in love with.
The film starts with a comedy staple: the odd couple besties. Lawyer Audrey (Ashley Park) is strait-laced and high achieving, while artist Lolo (Sherry Cola) is free and foul-mouthed. It’s a simple set-up fleshed out by more intricate character work – Audrey was adopted in China by white, American parents. To Lolo, her love of Mumford & Sons, among other things, makes her “basically white”. Her work involves laughing off her all-male, all-white office’s feeble attempts at “allyship” (case in point: they threw her a Mulan-themed birthday party).
