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Buckle up: This mile-a-minute 'Joy Ride' across China is a raunchy romp

Justin Chang

Deadeye (Sabrina Wu), left, Audrey (Ashley Park), Lolo (Sherry Cola) and Kat (Stephanie Hsu) in Joy Ride. Ed Araquel/Lionsgate hide caption

Deadeye (Sabrina Wu), left, Audrey (Ashley Park), Lolo (Sherry Cola) and Kat (Stephanie Hsu) in Joy Ride.

There's an early moment in Joy Ride when you'll know if you're on board with this exuberantly raunchy comedy or not. On a neighborhood playground, a white kid tells a young Chinese American girl named Lolo that the place is off-limits to "ching chongs."

Lolo then does something that maybe a lot of us who've been on the receiving end of racist bullying have fantasized about doing: She drops an F-bomb and punches him in the face. It's an extreme response, but also a hilarious and, frankly, cathartic one — a blissfully efficient counter to every stereotype of the shy, docile Asian kid.

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Lolo soon becomes best friends with Audrey, one of the only other Asian American girls in their Washington state suburb. That aside, the two could hardly be more different: Where Lolo is unapologetically crude and outspoken, Audrey is quiet and eager-to-please. And while Lolo speaks Mandarin fluently and grew up steeped in Chinese culture, Audrey is more westernized, having been adopted as a baby in China and raised by white parents.

Years later, they're still best friends and total opposites: Audrey, played by Ashley Park, is a lawyer on the fast track to making partner at her firm, while Lolo, played by Sherry Cola, is a broke artist who makes sexually explicit sculptures.

The story gets going when Audrey is sent on a business trip to Beijing to woo a potential client. Lolo comes along for fun, and to serve as Audrey's translator. Lolo also brings along her K-pop-obsessed cousin, nicknamed Deadeye, who's played by the non-binary actor Sabrina Wu.

The script, written by Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao, is heavy on contrivance: Thanks to Lolo's meddling, Audrey winds up putting her work on hold and trying to track down her birth mother. But the director Adele Lim keeps the twists and the laughs coming so swiftly that it's hard not to get swept up in the adventure.

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The comedy kicks up a notch once Audrey looks up her old college pal Kat, who's now a successful actor on a Chinese soap opera. Kat is played by Stephanie Hsu , who, after her melancholy breakout performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once , gets to show off some dazzling comedic chops here .

Like Lolo, with whom she initially butts heads, Kat has had a lot of sex, something she's trying to hide from her strictly Christian fiancé. But no one in Joy Ride holds onto their secrets, or their inhibitions, for very long. As they make their way through the scenic countryside, Audrey, Lolo, Kat and Deadeye run afoul of a drug dealer, hook up with some hunky Chinese basketball players and disguise themselves as a fledgling K-pop group for reasons too outlandish to get into here.

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In a way, Joy Ride — which counts Seth Rogen as one its producers — marks the latest step in a logical progression for the mainstream Hollywood comedy. If Bridesmaids and Girls Trip set out to prove that women could be as gleefully gross as, say, the men in The Hangover movies, this one is clearly bent on doing the same for Asian American women and non-binary characters.

Like many of those earlier models, Joy Ride boasts mile-a-minute pop-culture references, filthy one-liners and a few priceless sight gags, including some strategic full-frontal nudity. Naturally, it also forces Audrey and Lolo to confront their differences in ways that put their friendship to the test.

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If it doesn't all work, the hit-to-miss ratio is still impressively high. Joy Ride may be reworking a formula, but it does so with disarming energy and verve, plus a level of savvy about Asian culture that we still rarely see in Hollywood movies. Director Lim can stage a gross-out moment or a frisky montage as well as anyone. But she also gives the comedy a subversive edge, whether she's pushing back on lazy assumptions about Asian masculinity or — in one queasily funny scene — making clear just how racist Asians can be toward other Asians.

The actors are terrific. Deadeye is named Deadeye for their seeming lack of expression, but Wu makes this character, in some ways, the emotional glue that holds the group together. You can hear Cola's past stand-up experience in just about every one of Lolo's foul-mouthed zingers. And Park gives the movie's trickiest performance as Audrey, an insecure overachiever who, as the movie progresses, learns a lot about herself. Maybe that's a cliché, too, but Joy Ride gives it just the punch it needs.

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True to its title, Emer Reynolds' "Joyride" holds both the thrills of getting away with something and the emotional crash that follows a burst of adrenaline—a mood killjoy, if you will. Fortunately, it's in this sweet-hearted movie's favor that the highs are stronger and more enjoyable than the lows. It may not come together as smoothly as the best feel-good movies of its kind, but there's an unwieldy charm to "Joyride" that makes the trip memorable. 

At a cancer memorial fundraiser for his mom, 13-year-old Mully ( Charlie Reid ) catches his dad James ( Lochlann O'Mearáin ) stealing donations. It's for the family, he insists, but Mully isn't convinced. He snatches the wad of bills and takes off, jumping into a cab and driving away with it. Until that is, there's a snore from the backseat and then a baby's cry. He unintentionally picked up Joy ( Olivia Colman ), an uptight solicitor on her way to give her new baby away to her sister. Both on the run from painful memories, hurtful parental figures, and at some point, local authorities, Mully and Joy make unlikely travel companions as they sort themselves out.  

Reynolds, an experienced editor-turned-director, and writer Ailbhe Keogan thread a thin line between the pair's heartbreaking confessions and the various bumps on the road. Some detours are funny, some are somber, and a few are a bit off-kilter, like a street parade where people in intimidating burlap costumes dance around Mully at a delayed, dreamy speed. He's not dreaming, nor under the influence; it's just a surreal moment, complete with an oversized babydoll head being carried in the street. It's a bit on-the-nose overall, but not as much as a contrived moment on a plane when Joy is trying to leave, and the passengers rally around her like in a classic romantic comedy. Unfortunately, some of these stranger moments between heartfelt scenes throw off the tone and feel like ideas imported from another movie. 

However, other visual qualities of Reynolds' "Joyride" are more holistic. Her collaboration with cinematographer James Mather creates a vivid sense of the Irish countryside and seaside. The film keeps gorgeous details of a foggy day as the characters walk among endless green hills and stalks of barley bouncing in the wind. As they wait to take the ferry, the blueness of the water seems to leap off the screen. The sun enters a window with a lovely glow in a boarding house's kitchen. Even if an emotional scene may be tough to watch, their images are usually eye-catching. 

The heart and soul of "Joyride" are the two mismatched travelers brought to life by Reid and Colman's performances. Although plenty world-weary after landing with his self-absorbed father, Mully still has childlike moments of rebellion and innocence. In one tender moment at a gas station, he plays with a musical, dancing toy, and he mimics its moves. Joy watches from afar while holding her baby and smiles as if both taking in the silly moment and perhaps thinking of her own baby's future playtime. In a sense, she is haunted by her mother's lifelong antipathy and is afraid she will similarly fail this child she doesn't want. Colman's body language here is not too dissimilar to Charlie Chaplin's the Tramp in " The Kid ," acting as if almost physically allergic to holding a baby, let alone keeping it. Absent a maternal figure like Mully's, Joy sometimes relies on Mully for caretaking advice since he has experience watching over younger relatives. They are both grieving their lost mothers and learning to step up for the sake of others. 

The shared bond between Mully and Joy keeps "Joyride" together, with their tug-of-war over the steering wheel building trust between the two. They are both determined to move forward but must deal with their not-too-distant past, and they learn they can rely on each other when other parental figures have failed them. "Joyride" may be tame in some respects, but it's a gentle movie about forgiveness, love, and learning to cope with unplanned disruptions in someone's life.  

Now playing in theaters and available on VOD. 

Monica Castillo

Monica Castillo is a critic, journalist, programmer, and curator based in New York City. She is the Senior Film Programmer at the Jacob Burns Film Center and a contributor to  RogerEbert.com .

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Film credits.

Joyride (2022)

Olivia Colman as Joy

Charlie Reid as Mully

Lochlann O'Mearáin as James

Olwen Fouéré as Sideline Sue

Florence Adebambo as Catherine

Tommy Tiernan as Ferryman

• Emer Reynolds
• Alibhe Keogan

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• Tony Cranstoun

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‘joy ride’ review: ashley park and stephanie hsu in a raunchy, rowdy comedy with genuine heart.

This directorial debut from 'Crazy Rich Asians' screenwriter Adele Lim follows four friends on their wild, international adventure.

By Lovia Gyarkye

Lovia Gyarkye

Arts & Culture Critic

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Audrey and Lolo’s friendship is the bedrock of Joy Ride , which presents itself as a caustic, Asian-diaspora-representational romp. The film, which premiered at SXSW and will be released in theaters in July, is laced with the same bawdy brand of humor as classic contemporary American studio comedies, from The Hangover and Pineapple Express to Bridesmaids and Girls Trip . And, like Bottoms , another spicy SXSW entrant, Joy Ride sets out to prove (or re-prove) that populations still marginalized by Hollywood (women, people of color, queer folks) can be just as unapologetically brash, bold and rowdy.

After building its necessary backstory, Joy Ride zips to the present day, where Audrey (Park), a high-powered corporate lawyer, prepares to take a career-changing business trip to China. Closing the Beijing deal would earn Audrey, the only woman and seemingly the only person of color at her firm, an exciting promotion. Her boss doesn’t know that she, an adoptee with white parents, can’t speak Mandarin. To help her with translation, Audrey invites Lolo (Cola), now an artist who constructs whimsical, sex-positive sculptures, to come along. It’s been decades since the two women met on the playground, and although they are still close, the ruthlessness of time and divergent priorities threaten to change their friendship. Audrey itches for life outside of White Falls, while Lolo can’t imagine them living apart.

This trip to China takes on a dual meaning: an opportunity for Audrey to ascend the corporate ladder and a way for Lolo to rekindle the spark in their friendship. Joining the duo on their international adventure is Lolo’s cousin Deadeye (Wu) and Audrey’s best friend from college, Kat (Hsu). After graduation, Kat moved to Beijing to become an actress; she’s now nationally beloved and engaged to her TV show costar Clarence (Desmond Chiam). Meanwhile, the introverted and well-meaning Deadeye hopes to connect with other K-pop disciples in Beijing.

Like the best quartets in film and TV, the four friends form an unlikely crew, but it’s their differences that make their relationships with one another oddly comforting. Joy Ride balances its irreverent humor — a mix of sex jokes and insider-y, affectionate jabs at stereotypes within the Asian diaspora — with poignance. Audrey’s client’s intense interest in her family life prompts her to search for her birth mother.

Once you get past the contrived nature of this storyline, Joy Ride takes some surprising and heartwarming turns. The four main characters journey through China — from the city to the suburbs — encountering new friends and old family members. The film’s sense of humor is enhanced by Lim’s energetic direction — she plays with intimate close-ups and trusts her performers to experiment with their roles — and Chevapravatdumrong and Hsiao’s genuine interest in fleshing out the four friends, giving each of them enough screen time for viewers to identify and root for them.  

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Review: The exuberantly rude ‘Joy Ride’ gives its stars the raunch-pad they deserve

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A good gross-out gag is hardly a novelty in mainstream comedies, but there’s one in “Joy Ride” that made my stomach almost — almost — flip in solidarity. It happens in a Beijing nightclub where Audrey (Ashley Park), an American lawyer wooing a potential client (Ronny Chieng), is invited, or rather pressured, to enjoy a well-known local delicacy with a slurpable twist. “Are thousand-year-old-egg cocktails really a thing?” I wondered in ignorance and horror, thinking of all the dark, gelatinous egg chunks I’d left in my own congee bowls as a kid, despite my parents’ insistence that I should eat them and like them. Would a shot of liquor have made them more palatable? I don’t know; I’ll never know. But in that moment, Audrey’s revulsion, to say nothing of her bad-Asian guilt, were very much my own.

You might guess some of what happens next. Audrey projectile-vomits all over the client-to-be, enduring the kind of squirmy ritual humiliation that awaits many an insecure, tightly wound comedy protagonist. But “Joy Ride,” an amusingly rude and high-spirited romp from the debuting director Adele Lim (a co-writer on “Crazy Rich Asians” ), has a way of turning predictable story beats into spiky, revealing cultural distinctions.

You’ve seen a lot of strait-laced overachievers learn to lighten up and cut loose on-screen. You’ve seen fewer like Audrey, who was adopted in China and raised in America by white parents, and who’s now visiting her birth country for the first time with friends who are more laid-back, in part, because they’re better versed in the culture and language than she is. (“I’m just a garbage American who only speaks English,” Audrey admits in a moment of drunken confession.) And so the group dynamics are rooted in the usual differences of temperament and personality, yes, but also in nuances of personal upbringing and diasporic experience. This journey really does take Audrey on a journey.

The closest of her traveling companions is Lolo (Sherry Cola), her best pal since they first met as kids in a predominantly white Washington state suburb. A disarmingly funny childhood prologue — there’s a racist slur, a choice expletive and some swift, brutal playground fisticuffs — establishes the characters and their inseparably complementary dynamic. Lolo is the brassy, foul-mouthed, uninhibited one; she grows up to be an artist specializing in sexually explicit sculptures, many of which riff cleverly on the Chinese culture she knows intimately well. The more responsible Audrey, always eager to please and to prove herself, is an attorney in the fast lane, a lone Asian American female powerhouse surrounded by white men in suits (including Timothy Simons as her boss, serving up a sly caricature of performative allyship).

Lolo strengthens Audrey’s pluck and confidence; Audrey gives Lolo encouragement and a roof over her head. And so it’s unsurprising, if ill-advised, when Audrey brings Lolo along as her personal translator on a high-stakes overseas business trip. It’s also the kind of easy-to-swallow, conveniently friendship-testing contrivance that abounds in Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao’s script, including Audrey’s decision to spend her high-stakes overseas business trip searching for her long-lost birth mother. Tagging along for the ride is Lolo’s non-binary cousin (Sabrina Wu), a K-pop obsessive who’s nicknamed Deadeye for their combination of affectless stares and goofy grins. And then there’s Audrey’s old college pal Kat ( Stephanie Hsu ), an actor with a popular Chinese soap-opera gig and a super-Christian fiancé (Desmond Chiam) from whom she’s trying to hide her long list of past sexual partners.

Hsu received an Oscar nomination earlier this year for her melancholy supporting turn in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” a role that only moderately prepares you for her welcome display of randy comic gusto and killer timing here. She and Cola supply much of the story’s comic energy early on, some of it predicated on Kat and Lolo’s mutual loathing and some of it on their raging libidos. The raucousness proves infectious as Audrey, Lolo, Kat and Deadeye embark on a wild trek through the Chinese countryside, becoming reluctant mules for a drug dealer (Meredith Hagner) one minute, and hooking up with some hunky professional athletes the next.

Along the way, Audrey’s most shortsighted assumptions — the way she shies away from the locals she can’t understand and gravitates toward the white English speakers she occasionally encounters — are productively and amusingly upended. Lim and her writers have a knack for casual subversion, whether they’re flooding the screen with ripped Asian male torsos or staging a bubble-gum-hued K-pop-style Cardi B cover. Or, in a moment that will cause heads in every theater to nod in unison, suggesting that few people are more racist, in the end, than Asians are toward other Asians.

Beneath all the sexual-scatological shenanigans, the cocaine enemas and the cunnilingual injuries, there’s a familiar, even dutiful representational strategy at play. If comedies like “Bridesmaids” and “Girls Trip” were lauded, justly if somewhat reductively, for suggesting that women (white and Black, respectively) could be as funny and hard-R raunchy as their slovenly white-male counterparts in, say, “The Hangover” movies, “Joy Ride” means to accomplish something similarly liberating for Asian American female and gender-nonconforming characters everywhere. It also means to tear away the stereotypical veil of docility and propriety in which such characters have too often been presented, to the extent that they’ve been presented at all.

None of which, however well-intended, makes the movie a success by default. To love rude, regressive humor is to know there’s a danger in reducing it to a crude competitive sport or, worse, a declaration of intent. But while “Joy Ride” has its borderline-mechanical moments — a vigorous sex-a-thon montage is both amusing and overly calculated — it moves too swiftly and good-humoredly, for the most part, to fall into this trap for long. It also has actors who, even when cleaving to their characters’ broadest outlines or going for obvious, outlandish laughs, simply possess too much warmth and emotional vibrancy to ever seem one-note.

The joy of “Joy Ride” is certainly there in the sexual repartee, the caustic insults and the foul-mouthed zingers, all of which Lim paces with nary-a-wasted-moment velocity. But it’s also there in the warmly inviting smile that steals across Cola’s face as her Lolo talks about sex as a universal ideal, a source of affirmation rather than shame. Or the way Wu’s face lights up when Deadeye talks about why they like K-pop so much, since it’s the rare thing that actually likes them back. Park, in some ways, gives the trickiest performance as Audrey, the straight woman here in every sense: She has to singlehandedly carry “Joy Ride” through its inevitable, conventional tonal shift from sassy to sentimental, from fallout to reconciliation. She’s egg-ceptional.

'Joy Ride'

Rating: R, for strong and crude sexual content, language throughout, drug content and brief graphic nudity Running time: 1 hour, 32 minutes Playing: Starts July 7 in general release

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Joy Ride Reviews

Epic and no-holds-barred levels of hilarity, whilst also being moving and heartfelt...

Full Review | Mar 27, 2024

Joy Ride hoots and honks its way to a place a lot more serious than that title suggests. But once it gets there, it doesn’t quite know where to steer.

Full Review | Dec 28, 2023

There’s a tenderness at the heart of "Joy Ride" and the relationship among the four friends that’s sweet and affecting.

Full Review | Dec 5, 2023

Joy Ride's success isn't found in its character arcs or narrative.... But the sheer rapid-fire, no-holds-barred style and expert delivery of its many jokes unequivocally demand laurels in a genre more unforgiving of mediocrity than any other.

Full Review | Oct 16, 2023

Joy Ride isn't a perfect ride, but it's undeniably fun. The film stays true to itself and the central friendship that drives the narrative.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 6, 2023

Joy Ride takes audiences on an uproarious expedition into the wild, offering an irresistible blend of risqué humour and unexpected revelations.

Full Review | Oct 5, 2023

True creative achievement comes not from following a formula successfully, but from finding new ways to reshape it.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Oct 2, 2023

Powered by a smart script and perfect casting, "Joy Ride" is exactly that, a joy ride, from flirt to finish.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 20, 2023

What saves this picture from total dismissal isn’t its humor but, rather surprisingly, its forceful dramatic components.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 16, 2023

Joy Ride is one hell of a trip and one that you will be on board with early on and that rewards more as it progresses.

Full Review | Sep 6, 2023

Fresh takes, classic gags, and excellent performances from its leads elevate an occasionally clunky and very packed script into something well worth watching.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 31, 2023

Layered writing and game performances make Joy Ride a memorable romp that will have you wiping away tears of laughter before feeling a lump in your throat. It’s a great portrayal of the messiness of life, friendship, and family.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 21, 2023

Joy Ride is daring and audacious without leaving anyone behind.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Aug 15, 2023

The pivots from comedy to drama are handled confidently by a talented cast with keen comic timing, in particular Ashley Park as high-flying lawyer Audrey.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 15, 2023

There are serious ideas that add to a strong exploration of identity and legacy. And the characters are both messy and engaging.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 9, 2023

It may not be perfect, but Joy Ride is a naughty little morsel that’s big on laughs and, surprisingly, emotion too.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 8, 2023

Lim’s ability to hold everything together is key, making sure the whiplash of shifting tones from ribald to sentimental won’t put us in PT for six weeks.

Full Review | Aug 8, 2023

Sex gags and sanitised identity politics briefly feel like box-ticking, but quickly grow into a more organic, joyful celebration.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 7, 2023

But when this supposedly original, pioneering movie, by a team of Asian writers, falls into familiar gags of the past 20 years of comedy, it prompts not a guffaw, but a groan.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 7, 2023

Joy Ride shows what you can achieve when you have exquisite chemistry on screen and rowdy writers behind the scenes.

Full Review | Aug 7, 2023

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Ashley Park's Star Turn Anchors the Hilarious and Absurd "Joy Ride"

In POPSUGAR's series "In Our Queue," we're reviewing the buzziest new projects with a critical eye on what works — and what doesn't. This week, Victoria Edel is breaking down "Joy Ride."

Can one vacation be a total, life-destroying trainwreck, a drug-fueled party, and also the best thing that ever happened to you — all at the same time? That's pretty much what happens in "Joy Ride," the new friendship comedy starring Ashley Park , Sherry Cola, Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu , and Sabrina Wu that hits theaters this weekend. In the film, Park's Audrey — a Chinese-American lawyer with white adoptive parents — heads to China on a business trip with her wild best friend Lola (Cola) in tow. But Lola intends to turn this trip into something much bigger for both of them, and she brings her cousin Deadeye (Wu) along for the ride. When they meet up with Audrey's seemingly perfect college roommate Kat (Hsu) — now a famous, super-Christian Chinese actor — they have all the ingredients they need for their bizarre journey and this very funny, very weird film.

It feels unfair to compare "Joy Ride" to "Bridesmaids" or "The Hangover," but that's very much the genre it's in: gross-out, friendship comedies. "Joy Ride" probably has more DNA from the latter film, since it exists in that heightened type of world where things can quickly spiral out of control and celebrities and normies can easily interact in unexpected ways. But "The Hangover" doesn't have half the heart "Joy Ride" does, which did improbably make me cry in the theater. "Joy Ride" isn't afraid of emotion, connection, probing deep feelings, exploring themes of belonging, family, and finding one's home. Park's unexpected journey to find her birth mom and the way her friends support her in it gives the film a beating core at its center; it just puts some extra jokes on top to make up for every tear you might shed.

One of the best parts of "Joy Ride" is seeing sexuality portrayed on screen in all its messy glory. There is a sexual encounter portrayed in this movie that I don't think I've ever seen in a mainstream movie before — and while there are jokes around the act, the thing itself is portrayed as very sexy and fun. In a time where Hollywood movies have less sex than ever , "Joy Ride" lets its stars get freaky in a way that feels refreshing while still being very silly.

When "Joy Ride"'s plot does start to lack credulity (the friends' luggage seems to disappear and reappear between scenes, and perhaps I'm too Type-A to not stress over passport shenanigans), it's the performances from the quartet that are able to lift it back up and keep the engine going. Park in particular is able to balance moving emotional notes with over-the-top comedy in a way that seems effortless, but if she was any less adept at it, "Joy Ride" would be a much worse film.

Anchored by such a nimble and nuanced performance from Park, "Joy Ride" is able to soar even when a joke isn't exactly perfect. Though the third act feels a little rushed (the movie is a compact 90 minutes, but it feels like they could have added a few more), the movie ultimately wraps up this friendship story with joy and affection.

"Joy Ride" is in theaters now.

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Home » Movie Reviews » Joy Ride Movie Review: The Raunchy Rollercoaster Comedy of the Summer

Joy Ride Movie Review: The Raunchy Rollercoaster Comedy of the Summer

Joy ride stars ashley park and sherry cola and is directed by adele lim.

Review: Joy Ride shoots for the stars in its outrageous comedy style and unique sense of emotion, but the two often clash for an uneven viewing experience. Adele Lim’s directorial debut occasionally hits the right notes, but with some snags along the way.

Written and directed by Adele Lim , Joy Ride is a movie that tries to accomplish many different feats at once. It’s an unapologetically raunchy romp mixed with a heavy dose of sentimentality – a combo that often works better in theory than practice but is astounding when accomplished by the right visionaries. I was excited to see the movie, mostly because the industry doesn’t provide enough original movies like Joy Ride anymore and because Adele Lim continues to feel like a noteworthy new voice in the bourgeoning filmmaking scene. Not to mention a trailer that successfully captures the blunt, unrelenting nature of the comedy.

Joy Ride attempts to paint long brushstrokes of tone and emotionality, jumping from the raunchiest moments captured on camera in 2023 to legitimately heartfelt and sentimental instances just a scene later. Perhaps the latter works a bit better because of its higher success rate, but I ultimately left feeling like there was a much better movie available than the one we got – one with a few more tweaks to the script and a better sense of when to tone down the comedic swings.

Because for a 95 minute runtime, I struggle whether to call Joy Ride lean or bloated. On the one hand, the movie zips through the first two acts of the film, filling it with enough drug-laced escapades and banter about cultural differences between North America and China to get by. On the other hand, it fumbles the ability to change on a dime – when it has to land significant set pieces or emotional beats, Joy Ride feels manufactured out of thin air, as if the end result wasn’t even in the cards when the characters set forth on the journey.

Joy Ride follows the inseparable friendship between Audrey ( Ashley Park ) and Lola ( Sherry Cola ) during the critical moments in each of their lives. After forging a bond from being the only two Asian-American classmates in their area, the two slowly drift apart when societal wedges dig deeper and deeper as they become adults. Audrey becomes a successful lawyer and Lola struggles to make ends meet and lives in the former’s garage check-to-check. Due to a business deal going sideways, Audrey must seek out her birth mother with the help of three of her closest friends and attempt to find herself amidst a clashing of cultural differences.

There are plenty of jokes that land in Joy Ride and there are plenty that don’t. As is the case with many modern studio comedies, there’s a timely and poignant strike with each of them, attempting to cut through on a socially conscious, self-aware level that’ll certainly play well with a young adult audience. This isn’t to say that Joy Ride is overwhelmingly politically correct, but it feels more in tune with the millennial generation than with any other, speaking to a crowd in line with the ages of the characters in the film.

Joy Ride becomes a road trip movie, and each of the common road trip character archetypes are present. From Lolo’s carefree approach to life, to Deadeye’s ( Sabrina Wu ) deadpan, unabashed feelings about themselves, there’s something for everyone to cling onto at some point within the film. Unfortunately, there will also be a handful of moments that make you do the opposite.

The movie wears its goals pretty obviously, trying to capitalize on a few weightier, dramatic moments that don’t feel earned when they’re dished out. Joy Ride is paced awkwardly, especially as it shifts narrative focus from one potential endpoint to the next. The movie ultimately figures to be about Audrey accepting the life she’s been given after she was put up for adoption, but this is only after we untangle a few different plot points about the whereabouts of her mother.

Reviews for Movies like Joy Ride (2023)

It’s unclear for the majority of the movie where director Adele Lim is taking us, hoping that the raunchy, genre-ness of the story will pull the seams together – and at times, I was tracking with it. Deadeye’s comedic timing feels the most natural in the movie as they deliver line after line at an unusually high success rate for a studio comedy. Sabrina Wu approaches the script better than anyone here, finding their own lane when it feels everyone else is struggling to tie together the dichotomy of their characters’ motivations and senses of humor.

The final act jumps through a few different hoops – its catalyst being a K-pop rendition of Cardi B’s W.A.P. that goes on a bit longer than necessary and doesn’t fully materialize into a genuinely funny bit. Kat accidentally exposes herself to an Instagram Live video that negatively impacts Audrey’s professional life and the faltering friendships between the four of them. It’s a clever concept for a joke, but one that shouldn’t hold the weight of the entire movie on its shoulders.

Then Joy Ride transitions to a touching resolution for Audrey as she’s able to learn the true backstory of her family, and more specifically her mother. There’s enough sincerity in this moment to give Joy Ride a satisfying conclusion, mostly due to Ashley Park’s incredibly effective acting during these final sequences. She nails the part that generally doesn’t get enough attention because it isn’t nearly as flashy, but she completely owns it.

Aside from these few unusually touching moments for a modern studio comedy, Joy Ride doesn’t offer enough new to provide a jolt to the system. Ashley Park and Sabrina Wu give the best performances, but not nearly ones that can elevate the movie on their own. I’m interested to see what director and screenwriter Adele Lim does next because she still finds ways to shift the perspective of these Asian-American-based stories of families. I’m just hoping it’s a bit more concrete and substantial than Joy Ride .

Genre: Comedy

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Joy Ride Cast and Credits

Ashley Park as Audrey

Sherry Cola as Lolo

Stephanie Hsu as Kat

Sabrina Wu as Deadeye

Ronny Chieng as Chao

Director: Adele Lim

Writers: Adele Lim ,  Cherry Chevapravatdumrong ,  Teresa Hsiao

Cinematography: Paul Yee

Editor: Nena Erb

Composer: Nathan Matthew David

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All-Asian cast is brilliantly funny in raunchy road movie.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Underlying the raunchy humor are positive messages

Each main character is presented as an individual

Almost the entire cast consists of Asian actors; t

Violence is infrequent and comic. A young girl pun

Celebrates sex as something "beautiful" and an imp

Cursing is frequent and usually for comic effect:

Some characters are wealthy and are seen with limo

Characters drink frequently, including downing sho

Parents need to know that Joy Ride is a crude, hilarious road movie with strong language, sexual humor, drinking, and drugs. It follows a group of four friends -- Audrey (Ashley Park), Lolo (Sherry Cola), Deadeye (Sabrina Wu), and Kat (Stephanie Hsu) -- as they travel across Asia in search of one of their…

Positive Messages

Underlying the raunchy humor are positive messages about the importance of friends, the value of emotional support, and the way cultural identity is connected with your inner sense of self. Sincerity, perseverance, kindness, and respect are all important themes.

Positive Role Models

Each main character is presented as an individual with unique hopes and dreams. Each also has enough screen time to make viewers empathize and root for them. Audrey is the film's main character, but Deadeye is the most vulnerable, and the one who's most honest about their emotions. Characters grow, change, and become more fully realized and emotionally mature over the course of the movie.

Diverse Representations

Almost the entire cast consists of Asian actors; the narrative is built around a twenty-something Asian American woman who's far from a stereotype and is presented as a full person with an identity and goals. An adoptee storyline is central to the film, and the cast is diverse in terms of age, ethnicity, gender expression, sexual identity, and body type. Co-star Sabrina Wu is non-binary; Stephanie Hsu and Sherry Cola are also out LGBTQ+ actors. Director Adele Lim is Malaysian American and co-writers include Thai American and Chinese American writers.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Violence is infrequent and comic. A young girl punches a boy on the nose for calling them and their friend a racist name.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Celebrates sex as something "beautiful" and an important part of your identity and happiness. Many scenes feature explicit talk about sex (including descriptions of acts and body parts), as well as sex scenes in which characters are seen moving in rhythm and making suggestive noises. A character has group sex that they refer to afterward in positive terms; another has consequence-free casual sex that they also feel good about. Brief scene of comic nudity in which a character's vagina is seen from the front, covered with a large tattoo. Also a brief glimpse of buttocks.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Cursing is frequent and usually for comic effect: "f--k," "f---ing," "s--t," "ass," and "bitch." Vulgar sexual language ("d--k," "p---y"), and racist language (a boy calls two girls "ching chongs").

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Some characters are wealthy and are seen with limousines, private jets, and other trappings of wealth.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Characters drink frequently, including downing shots, which leads to drunkenness, throwing up, and making clumsy mistakes. In an extended scene, characters are trapped on a train with drugs and must hide them; they do this by gulping pills of molly, snorting lines of cocaine, and hiding them in their rectums. One character puts cocaine in their rectum in a baggie that later explodes; they seemingly suffer no consequences beyond experiencing a fantastic high.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Joy Ride is a crude, hilarious road movie with strong language, sexual humor, drinking, and drugs. It follows a group of four friends -- Audrey (Ashley Park), Lolo (Sherry Cola), Deadeye (Sabrina Wu), and Kat ( Stephanie Hsu ) -- as they travel across Asia in search of one of their birth mothers. The movie is raunchy but upbeat, with positive themes of friendship, identity, and the value of connections to others. Sexual content is frequent and mature. It includes group sex between a woman and two men (moaning, rhythmic movements), and there's lots of talk about sex and bodies, especially from one character who's proud of her active, positive sex life. There are also scenes in which characters vomit after drinking and one in which they hide drugs from law enforcement by taking cocaine and molly, as well as hiding it in an orifice. Cursing includes variants of "f--k," as well as sexual language like "p---y" and "d--k." One character punches another in the face for saying something racist. The cast is mainly composed of East Asian actors and has diversity in terms of age, ethnicity, sexual identity, gender expression, and body type. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Based on 3 parent reviews

Verbal Porn

What's the story.

Audrey (Ashley Park) and Lolo (Sherry Cola) were the only Chinese kids in their town growing up, and they relied on each other for staunch support. Now adults, they're still best friends, with Lolo even living in Audrey's garage while she tries to jump-start her art career. But their friendship is tested when Audrey must travel to China for business and decides to search for her birth mother, bringing along Lolo, her awkward cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu), and college bestie Kat ( Stephanie Hsu ). During their wild JOY RIDE, the four encounter vengeful drug dealers, horny basketball players, and dismissive grandmas.

Is It Any Good?

Unapologetically raunchy, hilarious, and full of sweet moments and unexpected heart, this film's vibe and mission are perhaps made most clear by its original working title: The Joy F--k Club. Like the highly respected film The Joy Luck Club , Joy Ride 's cast consists almost entirely of actors of Asian descent. But unlike the 1993 film, this one features a scene in which a lead character conceals cocaine from law enforcement by jamming it in her rectum. In a movie with less fizzy humor and genuine emotion, such a scene would be unbearably crass. But here, it's all part of the silly, occasionally surreal, and ultimately affecting adventure. It's also just one of many comedic scenes that could have easily gone south in less capable hands. In addition, the serious moments that tackle racism, identity, and the inestimable value of supportive friends bring a gravity that keeps the audience invested.

Wu's Deadeye has some of the most powerful emotional moments, such as a scene in which they cop to being "weird" and "socially awkward," but even so, they're still pained by rejection. "I don't have any friends," Deadeye admits, and Audrey, who had always looked down on Deadeye, is visibly moved by the revelation and their emotional honesty. There are other scenes that will get viewers misty, like when characters admit their fears and limitations and friends dole out hugs and support. There are also knowing cultural gags, such as when a rich businessman promises a party will have "Gift bags, oranges, Teslas, and Bitcoin." It all adds up to a deliriously enjoyable ride that audiences will want to go on again and again.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how Joy Ride portrays drinking and drug use . Were there any real-life consequences? Did the movie judge those used substances? How could you tell?

How is sex depicted? Did you think the graphic sex talk was meant to be realistic or shocking? What's the difference? What values were imparted?

Talk about the strong language used in the movie. Did it seem necessary or excessive? What did it contribute to the movie?

The movie is a Hollywood studio feature built around an almost all-Asian/Asian American cast. Why is that notable? Why does representation matter in media?

How did the characters defy stereotypes, both in terms of ethnicity and gender? What made Audrey a positive female character? Why is it important for kids to see a wide range of behavior from both genders in the media they consume?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 7, 2023
• On DVD or streaming : September 12, 2023
• Cast : Ashley Park , Stephanie Hsu , Sherry Cola
• Director : Adele Lim
• Inclusion Information : Female directors, Asian directors, Female actors, Asian actors, Bisexual actors, Queer actors, Female writers, Asian writers
• Studio : Lionsgate
• Genre : Comedy
• Topics : Friendship
• Character Strengths : Integrity , Perseverance , Teamwork
• Run time : 95 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : strong and crude sexual content, language throughout, drug content and brief graphic nudity
• Last updated : May 24, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Joy Ride Review

It's been a good few years since we’ve had a truly outlandish group-vacation comedy, one that has reached the scatological heights of Bridesmaids — but Joy Ride is a worthy successor. No bodily fluid, orifice or taboo is left untouched in Adele Lim’s audacious directorial debut, and though it may test your limit for gross-out humour, the film engages with more than just comedy. Come for the laughs, stay for the thoughtful deconstruction of Asian identity against a world that wants to categorise people of colour in rudimentary boxes.

As the only two Asian kids in the white suburb of White Hills, Seattle, Audrey (Ashley Park) and Lolo (Sherry Cola) become fast friends when the latter punches the local playground racist. That connection based on mutual protection carries into their adult lives: Lolo is a struggling, body-positive artist living out of Audrey’s garage; Audrey has an important work trip to China that promises a cushy promotion at her law firm, and brings Lolo along as her translator and support system. Also joining the ride are Lolo’s cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu), an earnest K-pop stan nicknamed for their vacant stare, and Audrey’s college bestie Kat (Stephanie Hsu), a local celebrity in China for her starring role in a costume drama.

Their holiday gets uprooted when Lolo encourages Audrey, who was adopted from China, to find her birth mother. On the surface, Joy Ride is not so distant from this year’s Return To Seoul , the superb drama about an adoptee’s struggle to reconcile her heritage with the person she’s become — except that Lim’s film is bolstered by a heaping sprinkle of threesomes, vomit, and cocaine rammed up arseholes. The Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg-produced film initially coasts along on provocatively uproarious set-pieces — a frantic run-in with a drug dealer, an aggressive sexcapade with a touring basketball team — though not all of it works. An improvised, candy-coloured rendition of ‘WAP’ falls flat before it has even started.

Establishes its own identity by filtering insightful commentary through refreshingly crude humour.

Being an entirely Asian-led comedy, Joy Ride inherently has more baggage than the whiter raunch-fests of past (think The Hangover ). There’s a silent mission statement in Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao’s layered screenplay: to defy the tired tropes surrounding Asian women, who are too often portrayed as docile, innocent submissives. That description, rightly, could never fit Audrey, Lolo, Kat and Deadeye. (The latter, while never outright stated, is suggested to be non-binary.) They have sex, take copious substances, and run rampant across China and beyond. There’s something liberating in just simply watching these people be explicitly themselves.

It helps that the cast is so infectiously charming. Park dutifully plays the straight-woman to her more eclectic troupe of besties. And Hsu is just as much a stand-out here as she was in Everything Everywhere All At Once , this time playing a horndog actor feigning celibacy for her Bible-thumping fiancé. She’s heroically game to wholly embody the ways the film tests her character’s frustrated libido.

As with Crazy Rich Asians , which counts Lim as a co-writer, Joy Ride unfurls and expands the nuances of Asian identity. The jokes strike a fine line between specificity and universality; such is the case when Audrey attempts to impress an important client by chugging down a century egg. She bristles at accusations that she’s assimilated so well that she’s “basically white”, but for all the jabs aimed her way for her love of Mumford & Sons and Succession , Audrey’s “whiteness” speaks to the varying shades of the diasporic experience. There’s an uneasy friction, too: the isolation Audrey feels for not speaking the language or appreciating the food — like misunderstanding the inside joke everyone but you laughs at.

That, in turn, introduces an inverted dynamic into the group. Audrey, a perennial over-achiever who can easily code-switch at an office squash match with her all-white colleagues, straggles behind her Chinese-speaking friends in her own motherland.

For all of Joy Ride ’s coked-up debauchery, that all fades away in a sentimental third act that’s earned, if conventional. Lim’s film faithfully fits the template of Bridesmaids and the like, but it establishes its own identity by filtering insightful commentary through refreshingly crude humour. Clichés be damned: it’s a joy.

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Is ‘Joy Ride’ based on a true story? Here's what to know about the hilarious (and raunchy) new movie

A new raunchy but heartfelt R-rated comedy called "Joy Ride" hits theaters on July 7 and it's already making waves.

The film — penned by Cherry Chevapravatdumrong, Teresa Hsiao and Adele Lim, who also directed — features four Chinese-American friends who travel to their ancestral homeland and chaos ensues.

The story centers on Audrey, played by "Emily in Paris" star Ashley Park , as an adopted, uptight lawyer trying to close a deal with a Chinese company.

Her childhood best friend, the artistic Lolo, played by comedian Sherry Cola, decides to join her for the trip to help translate and brings along her eccentric cousin, Deadeye, portrayed by Sabrina Wu. Once in China, the three meet up with Audrey's college roommate, Kat, played by "Everything Everywhere All At Once" star Stephanie Hsu.

The epic journey is filled with twists, turns and wild debauchery but it ultimately lands — without giving away any spoilers — on a heartfelt moment with each of the characters learning something about themselves and to value their friendships.

Why is ‘Joy Ride’ rated R?

“Joy Ride” is rated R for strong and crude sexual content, language throughout, drug content and brief graphic nudity, according to the Classification and Ratings Administration. That means anyone under 17 needs to see the movie with a parent or adult guardian.

Is the film based on a true story?

Writer/director Lim tells TODAY.com that the story of Audrey, Lolo, Kat and Deadeye was loosely inspired by her own friends.

She says all her friends did in their 20s was "hang out, go out partying and tell stories about our messy dating lives."

“Our friends are nasty — thirsty, ridiculous friends," she says, laughing. "And we thought, 'You know what, we are professional writers. Let’s put this all in a movie and create the kind of movie that we wish we had in our 20s.' And that’s exactly what we set out to do.”

She noted that they drew inspiration from the R-rated comedies of the past — specifically citing "Bridesmaids" and "The Hangover" — "where you have a group of friends having this insane once-in-a-lifetime adventure."

Should you watch this film sober?

The cast said at a South By Southwest event (where the film premiered) that it's best to watch drunk. When pressed by TODAY.com to clarify, Cola laughs.

"When we said you should be a little drunk when you watch this film, what we meant is that you should have a good time," she says. "This is a movie you have to watch with friends. Get rowdy in the theater."

Hsu tells TODAY.com that she's watched it a few times with audiences and the cast is always surprised by how "wild" it gets.

"It feels really effervescent in the room after and I just want people to go to the theaters, have fun, scream, like, have a beverage, you know, just have a really good time and then get to experience it with your friends," she says. "You know, it feels like it’s we’re kind of long overdue for something like that."

What 'Joy Ride' means to the Asian American community

Feeling "long overdue" for a classic comedy starring Asian American leads was a message that all four of the cast members and Lim echoed in their interviews.

Lim notes that Park, Cola, Wu and Hsu had never been listed as No. 1 on a call sheet before. (A call sheet is a daily filming schedule created by the assistant director on a movie.)

“It really was a moment every day when we showed up on set. It was a celebration where they felt like this was something special and that we were going to make the most of it,” Lim says.

Cola says the entire experience was a "dream come true."

"We still can’t believe it. Even sitting here (doing interviews), we keep just pinching ourselves," she says, noting that the entire experience was "so special and rare."

"I don’t take it lightly. I know this is gonna make an impact and I really hope people respond to it (by) feeling inspired to tell their own stories," Cola says.

She adds that she hopes people will walk away from the film and feel a certain kinship with each character the way audiences identified with characters in "Sex and the City."

Park says that normally for this type of film, all four of the actors starring in it would have gone in for one of the roles: the Asian friend or sidekick.

But instead, Lim says, the film stars four very "distinct and so different" Asian characters reconnecting with "who you really are" and their "inner freak."

Park also sat down for an interview with TODAY's Jenna Bush Hager and Hoda Kotb in a segment that aired on July 7.

Without giving too much away, Park’s character Audrey arguably has the biggest character arc in the film. At the end, she seems to feel more at peace with her identity as an Asian American adoptee.

"It’s a powerful message as well: friendship and finding your identity and yourself," Park told Jenna and Hoda.

She added that while the film is comedic, it "makes you laugh and cry."

Does an Asian American comedy mean we're at a turning point?

Instead of sticking to the tried-and-true stereotypes of Asians and Asian Americans, "Joy Ride" stars four very distinct friends who do not fit into any of the usual tropes on the big screen.

But does that mean times are changing? Director Lim says the answer is complicated.

"There’s no one point where we fix representation or racism. We felt that with ‘Joy Luck Club’ — thinking that this was going to change the landscape for everybody," she says. "We still had systemic issues that weren’t allowing for stories to be told."

But this time around, Lim thinks things will be different.

"I do feel we're at a different point. We have so many amazing writers, directors, actors out there, dying to tell our story.

"And it’s about ... making sure those stories have an opportunity to see light of day because it is never going to be one point. It is going to be about 1000 points — constantly pushing to make sure that our story continues to be told."

Sam Kubota is a senior digital editor and journalist for TODAY Digital based in Los Angeles. She joined NBC News in 2019.

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Yes, Joy Ride (2023) Is Raunchy, But It’s Also Emotional

Joy Ride channels films like Bridesmaids and The Hangover . It delivers hilarious raunchy humor, but also quite a bit of heart.

If you have seen the red band trailer then you already know what Joy Ride is all about. This movie is unapologetically raunchy. It shows a powerful cast embracing their sexuality. It is absolutely hilarious, but it is also so much more than that. There is a double standard that we are all aware of.

About Joy Ride: When Audrey’s business trip to Asia goes sideways, she enlists the help of Lolo, her childhood best friend, Kat, a college friend, and Deadeye, Lolo’s eccentric cousin. Their epic, no-holds-barred experience becomes a journey of bonding, friendship, belonging and wild debauchery that reveals the universal truth of what it means to know and love who you are.

There will absolutely be some backlash on this movie solely because it features them having one night stands, creating art that resembles body parts, and talking about what they would do to the handsome men around them. Here’s the thing though, there are plenty of movies featuring males that act this way and no one bats an eye. “Boys will be boys,” is what they say, but why can’t women be sexual beings too? 

One of the most empowering things about Joy Ride is the way these friends are unafraid to show that side of themselves — at least for the most part. When it comes to some of the major plot points, this film shows the leads having to hold back parts of themselves for various reasons. This causes the story to become heartbreaking and relatable, and will have audiences both laughing at the humor, and crying when the emotional beats hit.

Representation is important, and that is another place this film excels. Not just because of the incredible (almost) all Asian cast, but also because of the variety of genders and sexuality that is displayed on screen.  The movie stars Ashley Park, queer Oscar-nominee Stephanie Hsu, bisexual comedian Sherry Cola, and nonbinary comedian Sabrina Wu. These real life elements of theirs are weaved into their characters in a way that feels seamless. Their stories are being told, and that means so much to so many in this crazy and messed up world. 

Sabrina Wu plays Deadeye, who is very social awkward. There are many people out there like this, and it is sad to see them just kind of accept that they are weird, people think they are weird, and oh well, that is life. Seeing someone of this nature on screen will hopefully open a lot of eyes. Just because someone is different, it doesn’t mean you can’t be friends. We need to accept everyone for who they are.

The humor, for the most part, hits. Certain one liners will come back to you days after watching Joy Ride and you will find yourself giggling. The entire basketball team story beat is where the unapologetic-ness of this movie shines. It fully leans into these four embracing who they are, and it is easily one of the best parts of the movie. That and the K-Pop Idols sequence are the standouts of Joy Ride , without question.

However, just as it hits hard, sometimes the humor misses hard. It doesn’t happen often, but there are times when the audience was meant to be laughing and instead… silence. At just ninety minutes long, the movie flies by thanks to brilliant writing and on point pacing.

The themes of embracing who are and where you come from, accepting others, and simply being a good friend are heavy throughout Joy Ride . If you are looking for a raunchy movie about true friendship that pushes the envelope in terms of humor, but still offers a warm and embracing story with powerful messages, you have come to the right place.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Next: dealing with dad review.

Joy Ride comes exclusively to theaters July 7th.

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Tessa Smith is a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer-approved Film and TV Critic. She is also a Freelance Writer. Tessa has been in the Entertainment writing business for ten years and is a member of several Critics Associations including the Critics Choice Association and the Greater Western New York Film Critics Association.

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Official Discussion - Joy Ride [SPOILERS]

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Follows four Chinese-American friends as they bond and discover the truth of what it means to know and love who you are, while they travel through China in search of one of their birth mothers.

Cherry Chevapravatdumrongk, Teresa Hsiao, Adele Lim

Debbie Fan as Jenny Chen

Kenneth Liu as Wey Chen

Annie Mumolo as Mary Sullivan

David Denman as Joe Sullivan

Ashley Park as Audrey

Sherry Cola as Lolo

-- Rotten Tomatoes: 92%

Metacritic: 75

VOD: Theaters

Screen Rant

Daddio review: sean penn & dakota johnson get surprisingly intimate in the longest taxi ride ever.

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10 Best Romance Movies Of 2024

I think keanu reeves' $216m horror movie has finally found a worthy replacement, 32 years later, the acolyte reveals the sith lord identity, sets up major twists to protect star wars canon.

• Dive into the unexpected connection between Girlie and Clark in the confined setting of a taxi cab.
• Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn's stellar performances infuse life into Daddio 's seemingly static premise.
• The film nicely explores the dynamic and compelling nature of the relationship between Girlie and Clark.

As a New Yorker, I'm well-acquainted with long taxi rides across the city. I prefer to take these trips in silence, looking out the window at the passing buildings and bright lights while consumed with my own thoughts. However, Daddio makes a strong case for abandoning this solitary approach and opening oneself up to a unique connection, even if the dynamic that unfolds within it occasionally strays into something more complicated and uncomfortable.

The premise of writer-director Christy Hall's movie is simple: A woman strikes up a conversation with her taxi driver on her way home from the airport. That's a succinct summary of what happens during Daddio 's runtime, but it doesn't quite cover the full breadth of how these two characters connect and what topics they cover . The sparse set-up — the whole movie essentially takes place within the confines of the car — might put off some viewers looking for a less stationary tale, but as a character study, Daddio hits all the right beats.

Daddio's Characters Are More Than They Seem

They break the bounds of their archetypes.

Known only as Girlie ( Dakota Johnson ), the woman gets a cab from JFK and settles in for the long ride to Midtown. It's clear right away that she has something on her mind. Her eyes keep drifting to her phone, which she picks up intermittently to find increasingly provocative texts from someone known only as "L". Girlie's driver, the worldly and outspoken Clark ( Sean Penn ), starts talking to her and, rather than brushing him off with dismissive answers, she plays along.

Their relationship is hard to define, swinging between platonic and possibly romantic, but that only makes Daddio a more compelling watch.

With their conversation at times bordering on flirting, Girlie and Clark start out on simple ground by discussing people's reliance on their cell phones before evolving into something much more personal. Spurred by the fact that they won't ever see each other again after the ride is over, they gradually reveal bits of themselves to each other — Clark's been married a few times, Girlie's mysterious "L" is actually her married lover — to the point where nothing seems to be off limits.

On some level, Daddio feels unrealistic. Girlie and Clark's relationship goes from distant to surprisingly intimate in what is really very little time. Coming at this as a woman, I was surprised that Girlie wasn't more put-off by Clark's forward and occasionally raunchy questioning. I soon came to realize that it's a key part of this character Hall has created; neither Girlie nor Clark are the archetypes they seem to be , and the former's life experiences have made her the perfect companion for the latter. Their relationship is hard to define, swinging between platonic and possibly romantic, but that only makes Daddio a more compelling watch.

Throughout the year, some fantastic romance films have been released that push the boundaries of other genres & appeal to all kinds of audiences.

Dakota Johnson & Sean Penn Breathe Life Into Daddio's Static Premise

A movie like this wouldn't work without strong performers, and Johnson and Penn make for an intriguing onscreen pair . With very little space to move, both actors must convey their characters through small gestures and glances. Girlie is clearly carrying a lot on her shoulders, and Johnson reveals so much through the way she sighs at the latest text from "L" or how she smirks at Clark's questioning. Penn exudes surprising warmth and sweetness in his performance, adding layers to a character who could come off as creepy.

Johnson and Penn's chemistry makes it easy to invest in the conversation their characters are having. Clark is frank in his opinions about love and his assessment of Girlie's affair, and it leads to some fascinating debates between them. Daddio 's single location and dialogue-heavy movie approach occasionally make it feel static, particularly when the cab is stuck in traffic for long stretches. Luckily, Johnson and Penn's compelling dynamic keeps us hanging on, right up until the moment they part. That final beat could've been shorter to make more of an impact, but that doesn't lessen the satisfaction of the journey overall.

Daddio releases in theaters on Friday, June 28. It is 99 minutes long and rated R for language throughout, sexual material, and brief graphic nudity.

As the sharp, astute Girlie and the complex Clark navigate the very human connection between passenger and driver in the world’s biggest city, they locate a common ground that helps each of them see the other’s point of view — bringing them both closer to figuring out themselves.

• Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn deliver strong performances
• The relationship between Girlie and Clark is dynamic and compelling
• The one location setting can become static

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

The Bikeriders

After a chance encounter, headstrong Kathy is drawn to Benny, member of Midwestern motorcycle club the Vandals. As the club transforms into a dangerous underworld of violence, Benny must cho... Read all After a chance encounter, headstrong Kathy is drawn to Benny, member of Midwestern motorcycle club the Vandals. As the club transforms into a dangerous underworld of violence, Benny must choose between Kathy and his loyalty to the club. After a chance encounter, headstrong Kathy is drawn to Benny, member of Midwestern motorcycle club the Vandals. As the club transforms into a dangerous underworld of violence, Benny must choose between Kathy and his loyalty to the club.

• Jeff Nichols
• Jodie Comer
• Austin Butler
• 105 User reviews
• 116 Critic reviews
• 70 Metascore

• Funny Sonny

• Gary Rogue Leader

• The Kid's Mother
• (as Mierka 'Mookie' Girten)

• The Kid's Father
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Austin Butler & Jodie Comer on Tattoos and More

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Did you know

• Trivia 'The Bikeriders' was the name of the 1967 photo-book by Danny Lyon but always intended as a working title during production. However nobody could think of anything better so the name was kept for the release.
• Goofs While Kathy is recording her interview in Florida, the reel is spinning in the reel to reel deck, but there is no tape visible.

Brucie : What about the bar?

Johnny : Burn it down.

• Connections Features The Wild One (1953)
• Soundtracks Lonely Room Written by J. M. Rigter and Willie Murray Performed by Mickey Murray Courtesy of Sun Records

User reviews 105

• cinemapersonified
• Nov 5, 2023
• How long is The Bikeriders? Powered by Alexa
• June 21, 2024 (United States)
• United States
• Official Instagram
• Official Site
• Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
• Focus Features
• Regency Enterprises
• New Regency Productions
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $12,379,040
• Jun 23, 2024
• $16,351,040

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 56 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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‘Ride’ Review: A Texas Rodeo Family Turns to Crime to Fund a Young Girl’s Cancer Treatment

C. Thomas Howell and Forrie J. Smith give stand-out performances in director and star Jake Allyn’s suspenseful indie production.

By Joe Leydon

Film Critic

• ‘Ride’ Review: A Texas Rodeo Family Turns to Crime to Fund a Young Girl’s Cancer Treatment 2 weeks ago
• ‘Sight’ Review: Angel Studios’ Inspiring Biopic of a Chinese Immigrant Eye Surgeon Proves Sincere but Bland 1 month ago
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If you’re going to set your movie somewhere in the intersection of two worlds fraught with danger — say, bull-riding competitions and hardcore crime — it’s always a good idea to cast actors who look and sound comfortable, and credible, in both places. There are quite a few things to admire in “ Ride ,” director Jake Allyn ’s suspenseful drama about a rodeo family driven to extremes while trying to pay their young daughter’s medical bills. But the first thing that sticks out is how much verisimilitude lead players C. Thomas Howell and Forrie J. Smith bring to the table. If you look at their backgrounds, that shouldn’t come as a surprise.

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The filmmaker plays Peter Hawkins, the black sheep of a Texas rodeo clan who’s newly released from prison after serving time for a crime that’s only gradually revealed. He’s distressingly eager to score drugs from Tyler (Murney), his long-time dealer, so he can return to bull-riding. Since he’s strapped for cash (he’s an ex-con, remember?), he even promises to repay Tyler with his rodeo winnings. As it turns out, Peter scores a big payday for his first time back in the chute. But, of course, his problems don’t end there.

Hoping to help Virginia — and get back in the good graces of everyone else in his family, including his younger, non-rodeoing brother Noah (co-scripter John Plasse) — Peter ropes his father into a scheme to seize stacks of cash hidden in Tyler’s squalid home. Nothing good comes of this. Actually, the harrowingly sustained sequence depicting the dire complications that arise when Tyler returns home unexpectedly, and expresses his displeasure nonverbally, isn’t just good — it’s masterful. Maybe it would be overstating the case to call it Hitchcockian, but not by all that much.

Allyn continues to deftly ratchet up the tension, as John and Peter scramble to cover their tracks, even as Monica investigates the aftermath of the ill-fated robbery with a little help from her deputy, Ross Dickons (Reeves). As “Ride” proceeds, there’s a satisfying abundance of revealing character touches — whenever Gish pulls her hair back before donning Monica’s sheriff hat, you know this woman means business — along with a vividly persuasive evocation of small-town life in and out of the rodeo arena. The bull-riding scenes are aptly gritty, dusty and sometimes scarily convincing. But the interactions among the main characters — and for those among the bit players, including several who will never forgive Peter for his sins — ring every bit as true.

Many viewers — too many, probably — will experience discomforting shocks of recognition as Allyn focuses on ways our country’s flawed healthcare system can humiliate and bankrupt families. (It’s almost too painful to watch as Howell’s John frantically tries to make some kind of down payment at a cancer clinic.) On one hand, there’s something ineffably moving about the way Smith’s Al inspires others with blunt-spoken accounts of his own addictions, and encouraging words about the possibility of redemption. “Ride” is not, strictly speaking, a faith-based movie. Ultimately, however, it comes across as more honest and affecting than loads of other films bearing that label.     

Reviewed at Dallas International Film Festival, April 27, 2024. MPA Rating: R. Running time: 114 MIN.

• Production: A Well Go USA release of a Margate House, Tacklebox Films production, in association with Pine Bay Pictures. Producer: Conor Allyn, Jake Allyn, Rob Allyn, Don Lepore, Josh Plasse, Keith J. Leman. Executive producer: Shaun Silva, Doris Pfardrescher, Jason Pfardrescher, Tony Herbert, Steve Johnson, Nonda Orologas, Nidal Kahl, Bobby McMichael, Matt Shelton.
• Crew: Director: Jake Allyn. Screenplay: Jake Allyn, Josh Plasse. Camera: Keith J. Leman. Editor: Owen Jackson. Music: Those Who Ride With Giants.
• With: C. Thomas Howell, Annabeth Gish, Jake Allyn, Forrie J. Smith, Laci Kaye Booth, Zia Carlock, Scott Reeves, Josh Plasse, Patrick Murney.

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