Throughout Crazy Rich Asians, the novel, Astrid is presented as a sort of modern Asian Audrey Hepburn: She just has it. But alongside her glamour and mystique, her warm, down-to-earth personality makes her one of the series’ few deeply relatable characters. The books are sharply satirical, and even Astrid, as nice as she is, is presented as a girl who needs to learn to embrace her proper role as the fashion princess of Singapore’s unofficial ethnic Chinese royal class. In both the book and the film, her tendency to tiptoe around her wealth is a major factor in the shame and unhappiness Michael brings to their unequal marriage.
But waiting in the wings for Astrid as her marriage to Michael falls apart is an old boyfriend who, imagine it, has always loved her unconditionally, without expecting her to change for him. That’s Charlie, and he loves Astrid enough to take her just as she is: rich, beautiful, and goddess-like.
The Astrid/Charlie romance makes the book’s Austenian influences even clearer
Crazy Rich Asians owes a deep debt to British satirists — particularly Jane Austen and William Makepeace Thackeray — in the way it lampoons the excesses of the rich while indulging in its own opulence, as well as its presentation of the cross-cultural messiness of modern postcolonial Asia. The movie doesn’t really pull hard on either of these threads, but they’re major themes of the novel.
As for Astrid? Her plot is straight out of Austen’s novel Persuasion — perhaps Austen’s most overtly romantic book, in that while it’s about the perniciousness of family pretension and classism, it’s also about two people who never stop loving each other despite getting in their own way. There are also definite shades of Austen’s Emma in Charlie’s dynamic with Astrid, as he, like Emma’s Mr. Knightley, waits faithfully for his heroine to mature and realize they’re soulmates.
All of this deepens Crazy Rich Asians’ commentary on colonial narratives, even as it indulges in familiar romance tropes. The film isn’t just a riff on Austen, after all; it’s a conscious reclamation of Westernized storytelling devices that have, for centuries, marginalized Asian figures rather than incorporating them in those narratives.
But these days, Singapore is a major international city-state, and the use of these familiar English-authored tropes (along with its title) reflect the book’s awareness that this modern postcolonial society is now empowered, for better and for worse, to colonize right back.
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