Four women, two of them friends since childhood, take an international adventure to help one of them reconnect with her birth mother.  Sounds like an inspiring story, right, perhaps a television movie of the week?  Wrong.  Not when these friends are four wild women whose hijinks know no bounds.  Make no mistake, this Joy Ride is a raunchy jaunt across two continents, one that will make anyone with old-fashioned tastes (such as me) either blush or cringe.  Having said that, I must admit that some of it is at least kinda funny.  Like when the women completely disable Baron Davis’ basketball team.

Adele Lim’s film (yes, this lewd escapade was directed, and written, by women) finds successful New York lawyer Audrey (Ashley Park) needing to travel to China for an important business meeting.  She takes her best friend Lolo (Sherry Cola) as a translator, while Lolo’s androgynous cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu) tags along.  In China, Audrey looks up her college friend Kat (Stephanie Hsu), now a famous television soap opera actress.  Along the way to Audrey’s business meeting the women find their way into wild trouble, most of it relating to drugs or sex.  Lolo pressures Audrey to look for her birth mother as well, and that provides the action for the second half of the story.  And after all that, they have to make it back home.

To its credit the story does delve into universal themes involving identity, both personal and cultural; the importance of familial connection; remaining true to one’s real friends; and finding the courage to buck convention for personal fulfillment.  There’s even one genuinely moving scene when Audrey finally listens to the woman who surrendered her as a child.  And the story is well acted, particularly by the lovely Ashley Park and the gracious Daniel Dae Kim.  But many, if not most, of the conventional merits of the film are buried beneath relentless vulgarity, profanity, sexual excess and humor of embarrassment, which is really not my thing.  If this is truly to become the path of modern comedy then all of its purveyors should have their mouths and minds washed out with soap.  Preferably Palmolive, as recommended by Ralphie in the holiday classic A Christmas Story.  Now that’s comedy.  ☆ ☆.  11 May 2025.