ARTS
6

Thursday, August 8, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

There’s a saying that no one has 
your back like family. Through the 
good, the bad and the ugly, the peo-
ple who have been by our side from 
the start are (hopefully) the ones 
we can turn to when the going gets 
tough. With endless ways to define 
what makes a “family,” it would 
seem nearly impossible to capture 
the essence of the word in just one 
film. That said, by illuminating the 
universal inescapability of our roots, 
in “The Farewell,” director Lulu 
Wang (“Posthumous”) commendably 
depicts the power that the people 
who raise us and the places we call 
home have over us all. 
While navigating the trials and 
tribulations of young adulthood, 
independent and witty Billi (Awkwa-
fina, “Crazy Rich Asians”) learns of 
her beloved grandmother Nai Nai’s 
lung cancer diagnosis. Torn apart at 
the news, Billi is in disbelief over her 
family’s intentions not to tell Nai Nai 
(Shuzhen Zhou) she is fatally ill. As 
the extended family gathers together 
in China, under the guise of Billi’s 
cousin’s faux wedding, their reunion 
is bittersweet, with each family 
member anticipating the loss of the 
adored family matriarch. Though 

opposed to the family consensus, 
Billi promises to bite her tongue and 
play along with the fabrication, her 
heart set on enjoying what little time 
she has left with Nai Nai. 
Central to the film’s success is the 
pure, loving bond between Nai Nai 
and Billi. Despite the generational, 
cultural and lingual gaps between 
them, their connection is incred-

ibly strong. Awkwafina’s personable 
humor and Shuzhen Zhou’s embodi-
ment of Nai Nai’s matriarchal yet 
warm temperament is a dynamite 
combination. Their relationship gives 
the film focus, a point of reference 
that we graciously grab onto while 
confronting the complex overlap of 
funny and tear-jerking moments. 
When we look at Nai Nai and Billi, 
we don’t just see a grandmother and 
a granddaughter. We see a friendship, 
an attachment that is built on care, 
trust and love, not just shared blood.
While the film’s core revolves 
around the intricacy of familial love, 
the underlying narrative of Billi’s 
self-discovery journey holds a sig-

nificant role. Born Chinese but raised 
in the U.S., Billi’s visit to see Nai Nai 
pushes her to face the duality of her 
identity, as well as others’ percep-
tions of that duality. When checking 
into a hotel her first night in China, 
the concierge lights up at the revela-
tion that Billi is from the U.S., prob-
ing her about whether it is “better.” 
Billi awkwardly deflects the ques-
tion, answering that neither the U.S. 
or China is better, but both are differ-
ent. Though the context of the scene 
is quite lighthearted, Billi’s response 
holds a lot of depth. She has unbreak-
able ties to both countries, with some 
pieces of her rooted in America and 
others eternally belonging to China. 
Neither is superior to the other 
because both are, in their own ways, 
home. 
“The Farewell” reminds us that 
familial love, like love in all its forms, 
is messy. Though there are times that 
it pulls at our heart strings, there are 
others where it makes us belly laugh. 
The mixed emotions we feel per-
fectly tie into the complex feelings 
of grief, nostalgia and joy that the 
characters are grappling with. Filled 
with moments of beauty and sorrow, 
“The Farewell” may conjure up a 
few laughs, or even make you shed 
a few tears. One thing is certain 
though: When the lights go black, 
you’ll definitely want to give your 
grandma a call.

‘The Farewell’ is at once 
sorrowful and beautiful

SAMANTHA NELSON 
Daily Arts Writer

FILM REVIEW

Hip hop’s most beloved boy 
band is back on the album roll-
out circuit for their upcoming 
record GINGER, and they’re 
here in full form on “I BEEN 
BORN AGAIN”: All six vocalists 
on the track, a bass-booming 
beat from in-house producers 
Romil 
Hemnani 
and 
Jabari 
Manwa and a gritty black-and-
white music video accompany-
ing the single.
The 
track 
starts 
with 
a 
breathy 
and 
blood-curdling 
intro that turns 
the 
group 
dynamic on its 
head once you 
realize it’s bear-
face delivering 
the sinister lyr-
ics. 
Although 
BROCKHAMP-
TON 
switched 
up 
their 
for-
mula in 2018, 
bearface is still 
the most unde-
rutilized vocal-
ist, making his 
appearance 
on 
album-closing 
ballads 
and 
the 
occasional 
bridge or chorus. Hopefully this 
teases more new bearface cuts 
to come.
Layers 
of 
instrumentation 
make waves on this beat, but it’s 
as if each sound pops in and out 
to give the others time to shine: 
piano keys, an ominous synth, 
record scratches, chants and 
claps and kicks and hats over 
a booming bass. It’s densely 
packed without being overbear-
ing, cartoonish but a little bit 
creepy — almost reminiscent of 
“The Grim Adventures of Billy 
& Mandy.”
Lyrics have been in tighter 
focus on more recent releases for 
the band, and here is no excep-
tion. Kevin Abstract’s verse is 
intensely personal as usual. He 
continues to talk about a lot of 
the things he spoke on in iri-
descence and his solo release 
ARIZONA BABY. Joba’s voice is 

eerily pitched for a chopped and 
screwed sound, and his abstract 
lyrics are silky smooth. 
Afterward the beat breaks 
down and an out-of-place bridge 
echoes, “You oughta be ashamed 
of yourselves.” Matt Champion 
closes the song with a catchy 
outro, but Dom Mclennon and 
Merlyn Wood don’t add much to 
the track — in fact, Merlyn man-
ages to make it weird in his brief 
appearance when he says, “She 
so bad I let her touch my butt.” 
It’s a goofy line and a mental 
image nobody asked for. (“Mer-
lyn, what the fuck?”)
One of the musical elements 
that garnered BROCKHAMP-
TON so much love 
on their SATU-
RATION 
trilogy 
is catchy hooks, 
the kind of cho-
rus 
that 
wraps 
its words around 
your brain. The 
group 
scrapped 
their 
sticky-
sounding 
hooks 
for more experi-
mental 
song 
structures on iri-
descence. A catchy 
hook is absent on 
“I BEEN BORN 
AGAIN” 
too, 
a 
sign that GINGER will continue 
to switch up the formula, exper-
imenting with their sound and 
structure.
While 
“I 
BEEN 
BORN 
AGAIN” shows that the chem-
istry is back and all the boys 
are showing up to bat, it’s easy 
to miss the old BROCKHAMP-
TON formula. Long gone are 
guarantees of a catchy hook 
from Kevin, or show-stealing 
verses from Matt and Dom. 
While the track still holds up, 
it’s hard not to think about it: If 
Dom and Merlyn’s quick verses 
and the bridge were cut and the 
song had a proper hook instead, 
the whole song would land so 
much stronger. It’s good that 
BROCKHAMPTON 
continues 
to experiment — the SATURA-
TION formula would get old 
after a while — but this track 
shows they still haven’t nailed a 
new dynamic.

Brockhampton’s
been born again

DYLAN YONO
Summer Senior Arts Writer

SINGLE REVIEW

‘I BEEN BORN 

AGAIN’

BROCKHAMPTON

RCA (Question 
Everything)

A24

The Farewell

A24

The State Theatre