‘Joy Ride’ – Review
Director Adele Lim’s Joy Ride is an R-rated comedy with a CAPITAL R, and its hilarious and outlandish humour will leave you with plenty of giggles and that warm fuzzy feeling in your heart.
Childhood best friends Audrey (Ashley Park) and Lolo (Sherry Cola), accompanied by Audrey’s former college roommate Kat (Stephanie Hsu) and Lolo’s cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu), set out on a journey across China to find Audrey’s birth mother.
There’s nothing better than a wild and raucous comedy to get your funny bone working overtime, and filmmaker Adele Lim steps up to the plate with the wild and uncontrollable laugh-fest that is Joy Ride! And its definite R-RATED gags will have you in hysterics. Charting the journey of a makeshift Asian-American girl gang who decide to go on a journey with plenty of unexpected consequences, Joy Ride delivers the unexpected right from the start. There’s nothing holding back Lim’s exploration of the wild and crazy, and there are plenty of gross-out laughs in this crazy ride of sex, drugs and the sudden rush of cultural exploration that will leave you in delirium of comic delight.
Front and centre in Joy Ride are Ashley Park and Sherry Cola as Audrey and Lolo. They say opposites attract, and that’s exactly where we sit with these two BFFs. While Park’s Audrey is an over-achieving girl boss, who needs to learn to let go, while Cola’s Lolo is her loud and boisterous ‘trainwreck’ best friend who is pure Id, and together they get up to plenty of mischief. Thrown into the mix is Stephanie Hsu as Kat, Audrey’s college friend, now a prominent Asian actress, with a sordid past that could get her into some very hot water from her hard-bodied yet squeaky-clean fiancee Clarence (Desmond Chiam). Then there’s Sabrina Wu as Deadeye, Lolo’s quirky and aloof K-POP-obsessed cousin who steals every single scene that they appear in. All four actresses have a wicked sense of comedy and chemistry that they share, and they make a hell of a girl gang in this picture.
Nothing is off limits in Joy Ride, and the comedy is taken to the extreme by all involved. The best part about these gags is related to the unexpectedness of it all, and it gets wilder and wilder by the minute. Lim shows off her penchant for creativity with Joy Ride, and her use of Asian culture and references to wider pop culture makes it a fun watch. With everything from haunting tattoos to a full-on K-POP dance video, not to mention a drugs and sex-filled onslaught, Joy Ride delivers plenty of laughs, and there’s no filter with this picture.
But even with its propensity for the extreme, there’s still a really strong heart built into Joy Ride’s narrative, and the film’s third act is particularly touching. This is ultimately a story of learning to love yourself and accepting yourself and your past for what it is. Lim and her cast lean into this message of self-acceptance and self-love heavily, and you’ll feel plenty of emotions with the resolution of the film’s third act.
If you’re seeking a fun and exuberant night out, then give Joy Ride a whirl. You won’t regret it.
Image: Roadshow Pictures
