Joy Ride (2023)
Since I’ve been going to so many movies lately, that obviously means I get five dollars off now and then (thank you, Fandango VIP). If I go on Tuesdays, tickets only cost about five dollars, so that basically means I pay two dollars and sixty-four cents. It’s like time traveling back to 1980. My last free flick was Book Club: The Next Chapter. This time it’s Joy Ride.
Sigh. I knew going in that this was probably going to be a royal stinker, but I decided to take one for the team, and now I feel like I need Jesus. And a shower. And not necessarily in that order.
Audrey was adopted from China when she was very young, and for years her best friend has been Lolo, whose family is also from China. Audrey and Lolo bond because they’re two of the few Asian kids in their town, and the film shows them growing up together and doing things kids do, like going to school and being silly and winning awards and flipping birds.
Yeah. That’s only the beginning of how this movie rolls.
Audrey is a star student and becomes a lawyer. Lolo is a slacker and rents a tiny house in Audrey’s backyard, where she creates art that would make Dr. Ruth proud. When Audrey has to go to China to make a deal for her law firm, Lolo goes along to translate for her, and rounding out the party are Lolo’s friend, Deadeye, who’s a K-pop stan, and Kat, Audrey’s college roommate.
Lolo suggests Audrey look for her birth mom while she’s in China, but Audrey just wants to close the deal and make partner in her law firm so she can move to LA and get a new start.
As it all happens, though, the Chinese lawyer involved in the deal wants to meet Audrey’s birth family, and that sends the four ladies off on a crazy journey into the Chinese countryside. There’s a drug dealer, a basketball team, one-night stands, a threesome, a ride on a cargo freighter, and a stint as a Kpop band called Brownie Tuesday (singing “WAP,” no less), among other things in store for them, and yes, they all walk into a bar at one time or another.
“Raunchy” is Joy Ride’s most common descriptor, and it couldn’t be more apt. It’s also no surprise that producer Seth Rogan, who also brought us the needless and juvenile Sausage Party, which I refuse to see, by the way, produced yet another disgusting, base, degrading, and painfully unfunny movie. The audience at my showing didn’t laugh hardly at all, although the couple down the row from me thought Audrey projectile vomiting in one scene was hilarious. At least I think that’s what they were laughing at.
The movie has an unfortunate way of taking what should be nice, heartwarming scenes and making them awkward or disgusting, probably both. I don’t even want to go into specifics because I’d prefer not to think about this movie ever again, but suffice it to say the raunch is so thick that it reminds me of Stewie on Family Guy:
To be clear, I’m not a fan of Family Guy, either, but that particular scene sums up Joy Ride’s commitment to raunch. It’s annoying, it’s persistent, it demands to be seen, and then it grins cutely before tottering off to the next bit of gross-out humor.
Funny thing, though, in the third act Joy Ride turns into a sweet, sensitive story about finding one’s roots, being honest, and having real friends. It’s everything the rest of the movie should have been and wasn’t. I get that characters needed to have emotional journeys to complete, but they shouldn’t have to wade through quite so much garbage to get there.
Seth Rogan knows better than this. He may have done Sausage Party, but he also made American Pickle. Joy Ride deserved to be more like the latter. Oh well, at least I got to see it for free.
Joy Ride is currently in theaters. Rated R.
My grade: D-
Principal Cast: Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu, Sabrina Wu, Debby Fan, Kenneth Liu, Annie Mumolo, David Denman, Timothy Simons, Nicholas Carella, Desmond Chiam, Ronny Chiang, Meredith Hagner, Lilliam Lim, Michelle Choi-Lee.
Directed by Adele Lim.
Written by Cherry Chevapradatdumrong and Teresa Hsaio