The Farewell
A24 | Release Date: July 12, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
89
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 47 Critic Reviews
Positive:
47
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Austin ChronicleMatthew MonagleJul 17, 2019
Sometimes, the movie argues, it’s the things we don’t say that prove how much we care. Billi’s path to acceptance of this makes The Farewell one of the most heartfelt homecoming films in years. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJul 17, 2019
The Farewell has a special feeling about it. It’s full of truth and emotion, and lacking in sentimentality. It has an eye for absurdity and for the telling detail, and it marks Lulu Wang as a director with the rare but essential ability to make you care about what she cares about. It will go down as one of the standout movies of 2019. Read full review
100
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldJul 17, 2019
"The Farewell" is so unexpectedly and deliciously funny that watching it feels like a tonic — an immersion in love and art. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJul 17, 2019
This is a viewing experience to be treasured. It is one of the very best films of 2019. Read full review
100
Washington PostAnn HornadayJul 17, 2019
The Farewell pays delightful, insightful homage to the facades and pretenses nearly everyone adopts in the name of compassion. Read full review
100
ConsequenceClint WorthingtonJul 13, 2019
Wang, along with her stellar cast, manages to deftly weave droll, observational family comedy with deeply resonant examinations of the role of family and culture in our lives. It’s naturalistic without feeling downbeat, farcical without being goofy, and treats its cultural signposts with a sensitivity and honesty few filmmakers can achieve. Read full review
100
SlateInkoo KangJul 11, 2019
The subject matter is inevitably somber, but the picture is also mischievously funny. Wang pirouettes along some tonal hairpins — in one scene, I guffawed in the midst of wracking sobs. Read full review
100
The AtlanticDavid SimsJul 11, 2019
Wang, who has made only one prior feature (the little-seen 2014 comedy Posthumous), distinguishes herself as a thrilling new voice in filmmaking by crafting one of the most sensitively told stories of the year. Read full review
100
The Associated PressLindsey BahrJul 10, 2019
The film is a heady, gentle and emotional journey, but Wang also packs the frame with layered conversation and funny background action. She makes the family dynamics feel universally familiar while also presenting an authentic portrait of China and Chinese families. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshJul 10, 2019
With impeccable craft, Wang has created a funny, heartfelt and bittersweet film that will ring riotously true for anyone who knows the joys and agonies of a large, complicated family, regardless of culture, ethnicity or nationality. Read full review
100
VoxAlissa WilkinsonJul 10, 2019
Grief and love coexist in The Farewell, as do truth and fiction, past and present, sorrow and joy. It’s an outstanding, quietly devastating, deeply personal story, and one that’s destined to put Wang firmly on the map. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireJul 8, 2019
While writer/director Lulu Wang’s film is obviously personal and culturally specific, it achieves a universality and a resonance through its vivid depiction of a family in the midst of crisis. Read full review
100
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaFeb 1, 2019
The little dramas and themes that emerge during the reunion of the film’s far-flung brood become, like a family, more than the sum of its individual parts, and an incredibly satisfying meal of a film. Read full review
95
TheWrapCarlos AguilarJul 20, 2019
The cultural subtleties Wang inserts purposefully elevate The Farewell to have not only emotional impact but also revelatory social significance. Read full review
91
The PlaylistJordan RuimyFeb 1, 2019
It’s Wang’s singular gift for life’s simplest moments which makes The Farewell ring so truthfully bare, funny and emotional. Read full review
91
The Film StageDan MeccaFeb 1, 2019
Bittersweet, touching and always funny, The Farewell is lived-in from top to toe. Read full review
91
IndieWireEric KohnFeb 1, 2019
Building to the potential of a confrontation with the wedding climax, The Farewell threatens to melt into sentimentalism, but Wang dodges the obvious pathways to a tidy resolution. Read full review
90
Vanity FairRichard LawsonJul 20, 2019
Its universality, if you want to call it that, can only be so headily conjured because The Farewell is about exactly what it’s about: this family and their city, their culture, and their complicated bonds. That’s where the film’s beautiful, affecting honesty is sourced: in its million grains of truth, generously offered up. What an honor it is that Wang has invited us in. Read full review
90
Rolling StonePeter TraversJul 11, 2019
In The Farewell, Wang builds a funny, touching and vital film about what makes a family in any culture. It’s simply stunning. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyFeb 1, 2019
Wang shows an assured grasp of tone, a pleasing eye for unforced composition and a persuasive understanding of the immigrant cultural experience, with its sometimes difficult balance of tradition and modernity. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangFeb 1, 2019
With exquisite poise, wry humor and delicate swells of feeling, The Farewell addresses and gently critiques the stoicism that Asians and Asian Americans are often taught to project as a matter of pride and dignity. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJul 19, 2019
It’s probably strange to call a movie about illness and death a “feel good experience,” but Wang has pitched the film perfectly in this regard. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy BurrJul 17, 2019
Like her heroine, Wang straddles the fence and argues from either side of it; like her, the movie is profoundly Chinese-American, speaking to both audiences and able to be enjoyed by both. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzJul 17, 2019
Unlike "Crazy Rich Asians," which had eyes for narrative substance but shamelessly flirted with the superficial, The Farewell is a more substantive, engrossing and ultimately deeper work about the bonds that hold and strengthen us. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJul 15, 2019
Crucially, Wang and company found all the right actors to populate a semi-autobiographical tale of familial deception. Read full review
88
Slant MagazinePat BrownJul 12, 2019
The film taps into universal truths about the passage of time, the inevitability of loss, and how we prepare one another for it. Read full review
88
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiJul 9, 2019
It’s one of the year’s sweetest films. Read full review
85
CNNBrian LowryJul 12, 2019
A small, melancholy movie that explores cultural differences and dealing with death in an utterly charming, understated manner. Read full review
83
Original-CinKaren GordonJul 19, 2019
The Farewell isn’t tour de force filmmaking. It doesn’t have to be. In telling her own story, or something close to it, Wang has managed to stand far enough back to see the crazy wonderful way in which a family dynamic — full of strange and wonderful ideas about how to live life uplifts us — and has delivered a gentle little gem. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattJul 11, 2019
Wang’s story outline shares the familiar contours of other immigrant tales: the Babel tower of half-spoken languages; the ties that bind across oceans, and the physical and cultural gaps that can still break them. But Farewell also has the freshness of her own distinct voice, a dry humor and low-key melancholy that infuses even the most quotidian scenes. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeSep 26, 2019
Ultimately, it’s all about balance, a yin and yang of roots and identities, humour and pathos that comes together into a satisfying, bittersweet wedding banquet of a movie. Read full review
80
CineVueDaniel GreenSep 26, 2019
Those looking for a complex, funny and touching family will be more than rewarded for seeking this out. Read full review
80
Total FilmJamie GrahamSep 21, 2019
Awkwafina and Zhao shine in a deft comedy-drama with a higher US per-screen take than Avengers: Endgame. Read full review
80
EmpireNick de SemlyenSep 16, 2019
Both a vehicle for Awkwafina’s formidable talents and an incredibly charming ensemble piece. If there’s any justice, it’ll be remembered when it comes to award-scattering season. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicSamantha IncorvaiaJul 17, 2019
It's clear that Wang pours her soul into this movie to make the audience see what she sees. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJul 11, 2019
A funny, emotionally intricate and deeply moving tale of severed connections and renewed family ties. Read full review
80
Time OutTomris LafflyFeb 3, 2019
Delightfully embracing the specificity of Eastern culture, The Farewell reflects on collective considerations versus individualism, not unlike Crazy Rich Asians. It unearths the universality of complex familial love that defies borders and language barriers. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeFeb 1, 2019
What makes The Farewell so effective is that in delving into such a specific case, the film invites audiences to reflect on the passing of relatives close to them. Read full review
80
Film ThreatMatthew PassantinoFeb 1, 2019
The Farewell is wonderfully specific towards the culture depicted, but there’s a universality to its issues regarding family. Just about everyone will be able to take something away from The Farewell. Read full review
80
The GuardianBenjamin LeeFeb 1, 2019
It’s a slight film at times but one that builds to a crescendo of emotion. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJul 25, 2019
What Wang gives us is an engagingly sentimental story with warmth, compassion and wit, peopled by relatives who, for all their cultural differences, are universal and yet enviable in their devotion to “the good lie” and the quality of life they see as worth protecting with it. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenJul 12, 2019
The Farewell resists any temptation to be a wacky, extended family comedy and instead stays true to the sadness of its central premise. Read full review
75
ObserverOliver JonesJul 9, 2019
Awkwafina’s true skill as a remarkably sensitive collaborator has only recently been revealed—last year doing broad comedy in "Crazy Rich Asians" and now here, where every scene requires a deft shading of sadness and guilt. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubBeatrice LoayzaJul 8, 2019
From a distance, The Farewell can look scattered, a series of ambling vignettes on the tradition-rooted quirks of modern China and the nature of families divided by culture and space. But there are some bright moments of truth, bittersweetly illuminating the grey spaces we create in our expressions of love. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJul 15, 2019
The movie is compact, coolly heartwarming, and gratifyingly uncute. Be warned, though, it also leaves you starving. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJul 11, 2019
Its affection for its characters feels protective; the film is reluctant to spill any secrets or cause any embarrassment. There is admirable kindness and impressive loyalty in this approach, but it also puts a bit of a damper on the party. Read full review
70
Screen DailyAnthony KaufmanFeb 1, 2019
The Farewell is so fixated on its principle problem that it doesn’t allow its story or its characters to veer from it, or find further complexities in it. There’s only so many scenes a story can take of family members trying to keep the truth from grandma before it become less compelling. Read full review
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