‘The Farewell': Lulu Wang Takes Extreme, Endearing Lengths to Maintain the Film’s Big Lie

Spoiler alert: This post contains spoilers from “The Farewell” The tagline from director Lulu Wang’s comedy/drama “The Farewell” hints at its real-life inspiration: “Based on an actual lie.” The plot revolves around Billi (Awkwafina) and her family’s decision to not inform Nai Nai — the Chinese word for grandmother — about her terminal cancer diagnosis. They believe that telling Nai Nai the truth will only accelerate her demise. So the family concocts and elaborate scheme, including doctoring medical reports and throwing an impromptu wedding in China, to keep Nai Nai’s spirts, and hopefully health, up. Billi struggles with whether or not to reveal the secret, and in the end returns to New York maintaining the lie, expecting to never see her grandmother again. Also Read: 'The Farewell' Film Review: Awkwafina Shows Range in Rich Intergenerational Drama But that’s not the end of the story. The very last scene in “The Farewell” is a shot of Wang’s real-life grandma, and a caption that reads “Six years after her diagnosis, Nai Nai is still with us.” Wang based “The Farewell” on her own family’s actual lie — one that hasn’t been revealed to her grandma after all this time. But now with the...