Joy Ride review: Sex, drugs, and a very raunchy road movie

Five years ago, Adele Lim co-wrote Crazy Rich Asians, a hit rom-com that raked in more than $238 million and helped shatter misconceptions about Asian-led films in Hollywood. A sequel was quickly greenlit, but Lim later exited the film after she was reportedly offered significantly less money than her white male co-writer. Instead, she turned to a new project: a filthy road comedy about four best friends traveling through China. Now, that film has become a reality, and Lim makes her feature directorial debut with Joy Ride (out this weekend), a riotous raunch-fest that doesn't reinvent the genre but earns every bit of its hard-R rating.

Lim developed Joy Ride with friends Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao, and the film itself is a testament to friendship and the many messy forms it can take. Broadway alum Ashley Park stars as Audrey, a buttoned-up overachiever who, as a child, was adopted from China by white American parents. Young Audrey became fast friends with Lolo (Sherry Cola), the only other Asian girl in their blindingly white suburb. (When a kid on the playground hurls a racial slur, the tiny Lolo decks him in the face, a shocking but hilarious moment that sets the tone for the chaos to come.) Decades later, Audrey and Lolo are still inseparable, even as Audrey has grown into a prim lawyer, while Lolo is a lawless, sex-positive artist crafting lewd sculptures in Audrey's backyard.

When Audrey heads to China for an international business trip, Lolo volunteers to tag along as her interpreter, accompanied by her awkward, K-pop-obsessed cousin Deadeye (nonbinary actor Sabrina Wu). Later, they're joined by Audrey's college roommate Kat (Everything Everywhere All at Once star Stephanie Hsu), who's found fame as a soapy TV star in China. What starts as a giddy vacation quickly goes off the rails, as Ashley tries to close a deal with an intimidating business contact (Ronny Chieng). To prove that she's a dedicated family woman, she reluctantly decides to track down her birth mother in China, triggering — you guessed it — even more chaos.

Ed Araquel/Lionsgate Stephanie Hsu, Ashley Park, Sabrina Wu, and Sherry Cola in 'Joy Ride'

Joy Ride isn't the first bawdy, R-rated comedy to hit theaters this summer: No Hard Feelings premiered in June, starring Jennifer Lawrence as a 30something hired to flirt with a recent high school grad. But where No Hard Feelings dipped a toe into raunch, Joy Ride cannonballs straight in. Vomit is spewed, drugs are shoved in bodily orifices, threesomes are had with professional basketball players. (Baron Davis has a role as himself.) At one point, having lost their passports, the four friends pose as a fake K-pop group, complete with a hilariously absurd performance of Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's "WAP" (ending with a jaw-droppingly filthy finale).

The four leads have an easy chemistry. Hsu, a recent Oscar nominee for Everything Everywhere, shows off her comic chops as the reluctantly celibate Kat, while Wu's Deadeye lives up to their name, delivering emotionless and deeply hilarious reaction shots. Cola is also a charming hurricane of chaos, a lascivious foil to Park's strait-laced Audrey.

Gross gags and chaotic debauchery aren't exactly new, and Joy Ride shares plenty of DNA with other female-led comedies like 2011's Bridesmaids and 2017's Girls Trip. Joy Ride is a welcome addition to the genre, if not a particularly subversive one: Lim raises some thoughtful questions about Asian-American identity and the struggle to belong, but any deeper ideas are overshadowed by nudity and absurdist jokes. Also, not every gag works. (Please, a moratorium on scenes where someone accidentally does cocaine!)

The emotional third act is particularly predictable, trading slapstick for sentimentality and leaning a little too heavily on "friendship saves the day!" cliches. But even among all the sex jokes and vulgar one-liners, Joy Ride boasts a real beating heart. It's a raunchy (and occasionally familiar) ride, but it's well worth the trip. Grade: B

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