As Lulu Wang went into pitch meetings with producers and financiers for “The Farewell,” she made a list of items that wouldn’t be open for negotiation. Most of them were based on popular requests from executives, like how they wanted Billi to have a white boyfriend or were resistant to the cast being composed entirely of Asian or Asian American actors. There was also resistance to the idea that most of the film’s dialogue would be spoken in Mandarin (with English subtitles), despite much of its story taking place in Changchun, China, where Nai Nai lives.
“It’s like, I see the film you’re envisioning — because that film already exists! Like, a million times over! And that’s not the story I want to tell or the movie I want to make. I said ‘no’ a lot,” Wang told Rolling Stone in 2019. She recalled having to explain this to would-be producers over and over before “Little Miss Sunshine” production company Big Beach and “About a Boy” co-director Chris Weitz’s Depth of Field banner joined the project:
“… I was like, ‘OK, but you realize that means this will be 75% in Mandarin. It will be an all-Asian cast, I want to shoot in my grandmother’s town, and my No. 1 market is not the Chinese market — the minute we try to change it to fit both sides of the equation, we’re sunk.’ And they just said, ‘OK, we’ll try to aim for it being a Sundance film then.’ They knew what the sweet spot was.”
Wang was rewarded when “The Farewell” received strong reviews at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, earning raves for Awkwafina’s performance and Wang’s direction. It would go on to make $23 million at the box office, more than enough to cover its $3 million budget. More importantly, it allowed Wang to realize her vision without making the compromises executives would’ve deemed necessary to give the movie broader appeal. Instead, “The Farewell” represents an example of a film that’s easy to love, whether you relate to its premise or not.
