Crazy Rich Asians Parent Guide

In the familiar Cinderella story, Prince Charming falls in love with a beautiful woman, not knowing that she is really a scullery maid. Add a tiny glass slipper, true love and …presto…they all live happily ever after. Crazy Rich Asians puts a spin on the traditional formula. In this modern re-telling for adults and older teens, Chinese-American university professor and regular girl, Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) falls in love with Nick Young (Henry Golding), who she believes to be a regular guy. Unbeknownst to her, Nick is the scion of a Singaporean property dynasty – the next thing to Asian royalty. Getting to happily ever after is going to be a bit more complicated.

The plot follows the standard fairy tale outline. Nick persuades Rachel to accompany him back home to attend a friend’s wedding and meet his family – without telling her anything about them. Rachel arrives in Singapore, completely unprepared for Nick’s “crazy rich” relatives. The Youngs (with a few exceptions) are not happy to welcome a woman they see as an underbred American fortune hunter. Nick’s social circle, including ex-girlfriends and wannabe girlfriends, shares that opinion. The most formidable adversary of them all is Nick’s mother, Eleanor Young, played with icy composure by Michelle Yeoh. Convinced that Rachel is unsuited to marry the heir to the family empire, Eleanor bullies, belittles and demeans the younger woman. Rachel is left with a terrible realization: she can’t tie the knot with Nick without cutting his family ties.

This is a major roadblock for the couple, given that Rachel and Nick prize the cultural commitment to filial piety. Both of them value and respect mother-child relationships. Nick loves his family matriarch, despite her attempts to control his life. And Rachel is very close to the loving single parent (Kheng Hua Tan) who raised her and worked hard to lift them out of poverty.

This positive message comes alongside some negative content issues, the biggest one of which is alcohol consumption. Characters imbibe constantly. They sip champagne on an airplane, gulp down wine in bed, drink beer on a floating dock, and use alcohol as a lubricant in almost every social event shown in the movie (and there are lots of them).

The single most visible issue in this movie, however, is never addressed by the filmmakers, but parents will definitely want to discuss it with their children. And that is money. Enormous amounts of cash are spent so lavishly that “conspicuous consumption” sounds like an understatement. A wedding attended by all the characters is rumored to have cost $40 million – an amount which doesn’t shock anyone, triggering instead a “keep up with the Joneses” response. Rachel initially views the family’s wealth with apprehension. Yet eventually she has to decide if she is going to remain who she has always been or play the same games as the rest of the Singaporean social elite. Will she have a happy ending or will she become just another “crazy rich Asian”? The answer depends largely on the viewer’s perspective.