THE WILD BUNCH
JOY RIDE
NO-HOLDS -BARRED ROAD-TRIP COMEDY WANTS TO MAKE YOU LAUGH AND CRY IN EQUAL MEASURE. WE SPEAK TO THE FILM’S ASIAN-AMERICAN CAST AND CREW ABOUT PUSHING BUTTONS AND BOUNDARIES
WORDS BETH WEBB
On a sunbaked roadside in Vancouver, the cast of Joy Ride are behaving strangely.
Sabrina Wu ravenously bites into a hotdog-shaped plant as if it’s an actual hotdog. Everything Everywhere All At Once’s Stephanie Hsu squats behind a bush, pretending to locate the last of a generous number of cocaine-filled condoms inside… herself. Their characters Deadeye and Kat, along with Ashley Park’s Audrey and Sherry Cola’s Lolo, are aggressively high. It’s late 2021, and this is their first day of shooting. “Yeah, we really got thrown into the climax of the film,” laughs Cola. “Actually, I wouldn’t say it was the climax. The sex was the climax.”
Joy Ride is a debauched, wild, hard-R comedy about four Asian-American friends taking a road trip across Asia which features yes, some no-holds-barred sex. Co-writer Cherry Chevapravatdumrong remembers explaining the film’s adult rating to her mum: “She was like, ‘Do we see nudity?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ She asked, ‘Do you see breasts?’ And I was like, ‘Actually, no.’”
Yet beneath the cocaine, genitals, projectile vomiting and a crazy night with the Chinese basketball team (more of which later) is a film of enormous heart. It follows adopted Audrey, who embarks on a quest to China to find her birth mother with best friend Lolo, other best friend Kat, and Lolo’s socially awkward cousin Deadeye. The last’s nickname is attributed to a constant, vacant stare. “It’s painful, to tell the truth: it’s just my face,” Wu laments. “It’s just my face when I’m totally relaxed.”
If it seems surprising to find big, tear-jerking moments in a film featuring a penis-shaped playground slide, you need only look to the people who made it. Thanks to the bonds forged between its all-Asian-American lead actors, writers and director, Joy Ride is smashing the boundaries of R-rated comedies, proving that you can have your erotic cake and eat it too.