"Joy Ride" an unapologetically raunchy but sweet girls-trip comedy

Joy Ride (2023)

A studio comedy written and directed by women of color and starring people of color is all good stuff and worth celebrating. The movie, “Crazy Rich Asians” screenwriter Adele Lim’s directorial debut, attached to that representation is also damn good in its own right. Inevitably a successor to “Bridesmaids,” “Bad Moms,” and “Girls Trip” but finding its own inspiration through cultural specificity, “Joy Ride” is raucously funny and heartfelt in the same breath. It should no longer come as a surprise that the ladies can be as unapologetically funny, boisterous, and horny as the always-misbehaving dudes.

Ashley Park (Netflix’s “Emily in Paris”) stars as Audrey, a stable, overachieving attorney who has always had her shit together. Adopted as a child (her parents are nicely played by Annie Mumolo and David Denman), she was one of two Chinese girls in a very white Seattle neighborhood called, of all things, White Hills. The other was Lolo (Sherry Cola), Audrey’s best friend since the playground. Always the bold and rebellious one, Lolo now lives in Audrey’s guesthouse and makes her body-positivity penis art. When Audrey has to seal a deal with an important Chinese client in Beijing, she turns a work trip into a girls trip and invites Lolo as her translator. Tagging along is Lolo’s socially awkward yet occasionally exuberant cousin Dead Eye (Sabrina Wu), and then comes along Audrey’s former college roommate Kat (Stephanie Hsu), an on-the-rise actress shooting a new TV show in Beijing. It’s a work trip, but Audrey is eventually convinced to track down her birth mother and loosen up along the way. Anything that could go wrong does, and hilarity actually does ensue!

A raunchy R-rated comedy can sometimes come off strained or desperate as if having something to prove. Thankfully, “Joy Ride” embraces and earns its R-rating without sacrificing characterization. Audrey, Lolo, Kat, and Deadeye each fulfill certain character types, but all of them feel like real people even when working the blue material. Playing Audrey as the responsible one with a good head on her shoulders, Ashley Park might have the toughest task. She has to be the perky grounding force but also be a fish out of water and be game for the comic shenanigans, and Park is terrific in straddling all modes. Lolo is the brashly confident one, and comedian Sherry Cola is an uninhibited comedic dynamo with energy to spare and destined to be a star. Read the full review at GuyAtTheMovies.com.

Grade: B +

Lionsgate is releasing “Joy Ride” (92 min.) in theaters on July 7, 2023.