Joy Ride (2023) – Joyful

Released: 6th July
Seen: 6th July

When one thinks of the modern road trip movie, there’s a certain image that comes to mind for most audiences. That image is of a group of friends, usually four because that’s how many can easily fit in a standard car but that number can fluctuate, going outside of their normal lives and going on a simple adventure which results in insane shenanigans. This subgenre includes films like Road Trip, Euro Trip, and The Hangover which were insanely popular due to interesting locations, casts with great chemistry, and some decent writing… They were also overwhelmingly white, often using that as a major source of comedy since a bunch of white people in a foreign country and not understanding the customs has been comedy gold for a stunning amount of time.

It’s a genre that’s been begging for an update and a few years ago with Girls Trip we got a look at this genre through a black lens and guess what? It turns out that it was hilarious and created a superstar out of a practical unknown at the time. Now here comes Joy Ride, which goes through the road trip movie from an Asian perspective… sure enough, turns out it’s hilarious and will hopefully make a few more superstars out of its obscenely talented cast.

Joy Ride follows a pair of childhood friends making their first trip to China together. Audrey (Ashley Park) is going just so she can get a contract with an important businessman signed for her law firm and she’s taken along her friend Lolo (Sherry Cola) to be her translator for the trip. Their plans for it to just be the two of them change when Lolo brings along her cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu), an introvert with a K-pop obsession. The plans change even more when Audrey gets in contact with her old friend Kat (Stephanie Hsu), a well-known actress in China who also tags along to help out. Of course, the meeting with the businessman goes badly enough that it sends Audrey and her friends on a mission to find Audrey’s birth mother, and shenanigans ensue as they so often do.

For this kind of film to work you really only need two things, a decent script and a cast with chemistry. Just from the foundation level, the script for Joy Ride isn’t just decent but downright hilarious with a rapid-fire tone that just throws out jokes as quickly as possible, knowing one of them is going to land at some point. You can kind of tell that the writers have both worked on Family Guy, knowing just how far to push at the boundary line of taste and when to just indulge in what is basically a cutaway gag.

To emphasize how this can sometimes feel, at one point Joy Ride just stops dead to do a spin on the song WAP which feels like it should’ve been preceded by Peter Griffin saying “Remember that time I was in an all-girl K-Pop group” and it is genuinely one of the funniest scenes in the film because they know how to handle it. The jokes are edgy enough to get a good gut-busting laugh out but it never really pushes so far that it’s cruel, almost like the writers were trying to show that it is absolutely possible to make good raunchy comedies without punching down on people (Todd Phillips would be shocked to learn this).

The cast is also genuinely top-notch, a quartet of performers who all bring their A-game to these roles. Ashley Park as the sensible lead who needs to let loose more is genuinely brilliant, not only bringing some great comedic chops but delivering the emotional heart of the film that keeps everything on track. Stephanie Hsu reminds audiences why she’s a goddamn Oscar nominee and shows off just how versatile a performer she is, which anyone who saw Everything Everywhere All At Once already knows but it’s nice to be reminded. Seriously, it’s starting to feel like Stephanie’s type of character is just ‘Person who can do everything” and you gotta love that. Sabrina Wu is a genuine find, they mostly have to play the quiet weirdo but they play it so well that you love them instantly, and every time they do contribute something it’s absolute gold Also, bonus points for Joy Ride just casually throwing in a non-binary performer/character in the main cast of the film. Once again, proving that this is entirely doable while also delivering the exact kind of film that some people think you can’t make anymore (almost like every time someone complains that they can’t make this kind of movie anymore, what they mean is they’re not creative enough to do it… meanwhile, the people behind Joy Ride can do an extended bit on pussy tattoos and get huge laughs without actually hurting people because it’s not that hard!).

The absolute star of Joy Ride, without question, is Sherry Cola who explodes onto the screen with the kind of energy that normally requires so much cocaine in order to achieve (which is funny because somehow the character calms down after doing a bunch of cocaine). Earlier on I mentioned the film Girls Trip and that comparison works particularly well with Sherry, she is the Tiffany Haddish of this film AKA she completely steals every scene and has so much pure charisma that this is hopefully going to launch her into superstardom. If there is anyone with half a brain working in Hollywood, they are driving to Sherry Cola’s house right now with a dump truck of money and a contract to be in whatever the fuck she wants to be in because the film will be better because she’s in it. 

A second dump truck should probably also be driven to Adele Kim’s house as she manages to hold everything together well with this, her directorial debut. She clearly gets how to make this kind of film work, knowing just when to cut away for a gag and getting the trust out of her performers so they can go to the insane places they needed to go. Fun fact, this amazing woman co-wrote Crazy Rich Asians but won’t be returning for the sequel because Warner Brothers (the morons that they are) were going to pay her substantially less than her co-writer… looks like she got the last laugh there because she’s undoubtedly going to be an in-demand director now based on how good she is with this film while Warner Brothers will be selling the Animaniac-filled water tower for scrap metal by this time next year. 

Joy Ride is just a joy to watch, absolutely filthy at times, and unafraid to go to some insane places for a joke but in a way that’s just fun. It never feels like it’s punching down or playing up stereotypes or anything like that, it’s lovingly ribbing everyone in a way that’s charming and hilarious. There are more than a few times it pushes into straight-up cartoon territory (again, the writers were on Family Guy and oh boy can you tell) but it all works incredibly well. It’s one hell of a fun film with one of the most impressive casts this kind of comedy has had in a long damn time. Someone please get this group of people to make another film together as soon as possible, it’s a breath of fresh air and I will take as much of it as I can get.