The Farewell

Billi, a Chinese American writer in New York, learns that her grandmother in Changchun has terminal lung cancer. The family, following a Chinese custom, chooses not to tell Nai Nai her diagnosis, and arranges a hasty wedding for a cousin so that relatives scattered abroad can return to see her. Billi travels back against her parents' wishes, unconvinced the deception is kind, and struggles to keep her composure at banquets and hospital visits.

Wang based the story on her own family, and critics noted how she stages the lie as ordinary domestic labour rather than melodrama. Reviewers praised the restraint of the comedy, which finds absurdity in staged photographs and wedding rehearsals without mocking the people keeping the secret. Zhao Shuzhen drew attention for the warmth of her oblivious matriarch, and Awkwafina, known for broad roles, was singled out for a quiet, interior performance.

For a psychodynamic clinician, the film sets one person's idea of autonomy against a family that treats a diagnosis as shared property, carried by the well on behalf of the dying. It shows anticipatory grief performed in secret, mourning disguised as celebration.