encouragement: “I don’t know how, but I think they’re liking it, ” she yells, checking her laptop. “Guy from Tasmania merely donated a bitcoin.” Ennobled, Nora gets too excited( “I’m gonna do that Bezos money! I’m gonna back up the truck! ” ), protrusions into a candle whilst backing up the truck, and unknowingly light-footeds her dragon fanny on fire.
CHENISE[ scared ]: “Ooooh, you’re lit! ”
NORA[ inattentive ]: “I’m lit! ”
CHENISE: “No , no, you’re on fire! ”
NORA[ still forgetful ]: “I’m on fire! ”
CHENISE: “Your tail! ”
NORA[ no longer oblivious ]: “Whaaaat? ”
Fiery hilarity ensues. Well, six seconds’ worth of fiery exhilaration, anyway–Comedy Central ain’t got much of a stunt plan. Still, make that be a lesson to you about the dangers of mistreating rap-adjacent slang, although an exceptional finesse with rap-adjacent slang is a huge part of the reason Awkwafina went this gig in the first place.
Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens, which debuts Wednesday night and is already refreshed for Season 2, does indeed tell the droll, semiautobiographical narration of the young woman of Chinese and Korean American descent born Nora Lum( in Queens) who firstly skyrocketed to viral prominence as Awkwafina via the 2012 rap charade “My Vag.” Yes, “My vag acquired Best Vag, ” rapped the insolent multihyphenate hypebeast who would, eight years later, acquire the 2020 Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion-picture show, Musical or Comedy. “Your vag won Best Supporting Vag.”
Awkwafina herself, meanwhile, radiates a rapturous and apparently brainless off-kilter charm that sunburns brighter the subtler it is. She’s a living-at-home burnout who can’t get( and/ or retain) a task, who snickers Adderall, who is smart enough to count cards at an Atlantic City blackjack table but dumb enough to announce that she’s doing so, who gamely delivers routes like, “They should’ve called it’ bi-school, ’ cause I was bi as fucking back then. Bisexual. Vagina and penis.” But the funniest thing she does in the captain( atmosphere: sincere) is simply roll down her auto opening, an resonate of the funniest thing she does in Crazy Rich Asians.
This broad and spotty show is a hell of a time to absorb the lesson that the mantra Less Is More applies to this person peculiarly, though The Farewell once proved that in dramatically different, and in fact roughly incompatible, situations. What I’m saying is that it’s dreadfully jarring the first time Nora entitles her tiresomely profane Comedy Central grandmother Nai Nai.
The triumph of Awkwafina in The Farewell–she wizards as the similarly adrift Billi, who tours from NYC back to China so her family can say goodbye to her grandmother, who is( humanely, arguably) unaware she’s dying of cancer–is not the tired age-old preposterou comedian goes spectacular by thoroughly suppressing her wackiness cliche, but something savvier and quieter and more sweetly devastating. It’s a movie about suppressing your spirits, about not saying or for that matter not acting what you’re feeling, where the whole dramatic friction is whether Billi’s ever going to crack and behave like she’s a person in an Oscar-worthy drama.( The Farewell actually should’ve been nominated for, like, 10 Oscars, dammit .)
Moreover, like Crazy Rich Asians( an outlandish success) or Ocean’s Eight( a moneymaker but a sizable displeasure) or even late 2019 ’s Jumanji: The Next Level( experts agree she embezzles it ), it’s an ensemble section wherein Awkwafina’s star power proliferates tenfold for every other person in the enclose. With Billi, the volatile troublemaker, the cartoonish faildaughter, even the problematic viral-video scamp Awkwafina represents is always present, but repressed in a natural and heartbreaking room. The camera appears on, unblinking and unmoving, as Billi and her beloved Nai Nai( Zhao Shuzhen) run through Nai Nai’s morning activities, circling each other, chuckling and strolling off camera. There’s simultaneously nothing and everything to this: They’re just acting at all, and hitherto communicating a dozen teary-eyed monologues’ worth of raw feeling.
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