In spite of some moments of heart and emotional heft, it always feels it’s working too hard at brash, brassy feminist representation.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 18, 2024

The humour is crude, ribald and deliciously unsavoury – everything you could hope for, in fact.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 6, 2023

Hsu and Cola balance the mania well against Park’s straight woman sincerity, but it’s Wu, a rising star on the standup scene, who serves as Joy Ride’s surprise MVP.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 4, 2023

A lot you’ve seen before but with just enough rude freshness to keep from feeling like a complete retread.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 4, 2023

... A movie that’s often middling when pushing comic boundaries but nonetheless generates hefty emotional payoffs when it engages with the pain of abandonment, grief and family bonds.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 4, 2023

The directorial debut of Adele Lim can be something of a hot mess, but that’s part of its charm.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 4, 2023

Hands-over-eyes, wretched hilarity – I was in the right mood.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 4, 2023

The execution is functional and somewhat cartoonish but Joy Ride is an amiable number...

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 4, 2023

The jokes are so stale, the performances so broad, and the plot so greased up with improbable short cuts, that Audrey’s journey feels less like a voyage of self-discovery than a coach tour of the form’s dustiest landmarks.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 3, 2023

As well as being sensitively performed... this movie deftly explores internalised racism, the importance of online friendships for those on the spectrum and the stigma attached (even now) to pre-marital sex.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 2, 2023

Both hilarious and heartfelt, Joy Ride packs a nuanced exploration of Asian identity into a Trojan Horse comedy, filled with enough narcotics to get the blood pumping.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 1, 2023

This movie is a ton of fun... It's great watching these ladies.

| Jul 21, 2023

It is way too easy to fall in love with Joy Ride. The naughty characters, shocking situations and sisterhood drama disarm you. You’ll want to have fun with it. Filthy, silly fun.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 12, 2023

It features enough outrageous moments to be a fine diversion, but despite a totally game cast... it’s never as bold as it wants to be.

| Jul 8, 2023

The need for likability becomes a liability in the end. Still, Joy Ride understands how to get down and dirty, and that the healing power of raunch-coms lies in making the transgressive seem relatable, and vise versa.

| Jul 7, 2023

Built around a predominantly Asian-American cast, it’s so determined to be crude and edgy that while its friendship dynamic lingers, its initial cleverness gets left in the rear-view mirror.

| Jul 7, 2023

Park had me from that guzzle. Yet the impressive thing about Joy Ride, a comedy that more than earns its R rating is that there are similar moments for each of the superb quartet of actors that make this film buzz along.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 7, 2023

It isn’t until the last half hour that the film finally switches tones from aggressively and charmlessly filthy to thoughtful... If only the filmmakers had had the courage to resist pitching the rest of Joy Ride to the lowest possible common denominator.

| Jul 7, 2023

It’s a film that fully delivers both cultural specificity (an older relative is referred to as being “has-a-plastic-bag-full-of-other-plastic-bags Chinese”) and raunchy R-rated comedy, as its cast asserts confident, witty, sexual agency throughout.

| Jul 7, 2023

Joy Ride, an amusingly rude and high-spirited romp from the debuting director Adele Lim, has a way of turning predictable story beats into spiky, revealing cultural distinctions.

| Jul 7, 2023