So you’ve got this couple in New York that’s dating, and the dude is like, “hey, come back home with me to Singapore for my friend’s wedding, it’ll be rad,” and the lady is like “sure, okay, sounds rad,” and then it turns out that in fact this dude is the scion to a family that is wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice, and his mom is Michelle Yeoh, who does not want her son dating this girl for reasons obvious (poor!) and subtler (American!); and man, you do not want to get on Michelle Yeoh’s bad side, as anyone who has seen Star Trek: Discovery can tell you.

So plot-wise, this is a very familiar kind of Cinderella story (multiple references to pumpkins are made by characters), except that of course there’s also the “oh hey, this whole time we were dating I never mentioned that I’m actually super-rich, and also I didn’t mention it when I invited you to this wedding or to meet my family, and uh, welp” aspect to it. So it’s all full of character-y conflict that way, and then plus also other characters have their own conflicts.

So it’s I guess kinda soapy, but the script stays light for the most part, with comedic relief from Awkwafina and (ugh) Ken Jeong and weirdly enough a mostly non-famous guy I am familiar with as a boardgame content creator, and it’s by and large frothy fun.

But if this were just Anne Hathaway going off to Latveria to marry another prince or whatever, it wouldn’t be as interesting. (Okay, wait, actually if she were going to actual Latveria to marry Doctor Doom, I want to see that movie, but I digress.) What makes it more interesting is that it’s about the super-rich in Singapore specifically. I think there’s a lot to the critique that what it’s really doing is showing that there is a global shared culture of the ultra-rich that transcends national boundaries, but at the same time that’s clearly a harrumphing rejoinder to people celebrating the reality that this is a glamorous Hollywood movie with an entirely Asian cast and an Asian director; and honestly, I’ll leave the cultural politics to someone better-equipped to have confident opinions and just say that the more specific the movie got, the better it was.

Overall, this isn’t like a brilliant movie or anything, but it’s enjoyable fluff. Lightly recommended.