Therapist Reacts to CRAZY RICH ASIANS)

It's just delightful. It's got some hot sauce on it. It's so good. Let's do this. Let's go. Don't worry. It's going to be great whatever happens. The worth of a person isn't their family, isn't their wealth, or their social status. In a relationship, it's their character. Do they show up with integrity? Do they show up to take accountability, to make changes, and to love you the way that you need to be loved? This is gold standard. It's so much fun, and it's cute, and like, I just, ah, I love this movie. Will you marry me? Welcome to Cinema Therapy. I'm Alan Seawright, a professional filmmaker who needs therapy. I'm joined by... Jonathan Decker, licensed therapist who loves movies. What's going on, brother? I would like to have you react to a film, specifically the relationships in the film, because there's a lot of relationship tension and drama in Crazy Rich Asians. Yes! I love this movie. Just when I thought romantic comedies, like, were dead in the water, this came out and I'm like, oh, there is life in this genre. This dude comes out and he's like, hey, guess what? Cinderella in Singapore? Watch this, bitches. Just wait until I start making movies about witches. Okay, snitches get stitches. They don't. You should report people to the authorities if necessary. So your family is, like, rich? We're comfortable. That is exactly what a super rich person would say. It's not a big deal, obviously. I just think it's kind of weird that I had no idea. Yep. I mean, you have a Jamba Juice card. You use my Netflix password. You play basketball at that Y that kind of smells. I really like that place. Thank you very much. Honestly, using someone else's Netflix password is one of the most rich things a rich person could do. Damn, rich people are so cheap. But I'm going all the way over there to meet them. I kind of just want to know what I'm getting into. That's fair. They're your family. Well, my family's much like anybody else's. There's half of them that you love and respect. And then there's the other half. Which half am I meeting? It's just delightful. It's so much fun, and it's cute. And, like, I just, ah, I love this movie. I don't 100% blame Nick for not leading with I'm rich, because he wants a real authentic relationship. At a certain point, you show someone who you really are. They've been together a year. Yeah. Probably past time. Yeah. To let him know. He knows by now that she's into him for him. Now she's off balance. Now, most of us can't relate. Most of us don't come from super insanely wealthy families. But the principle still holds true of you're dating someone for the relationship to be stable. You need to show who you really are so the person can choose, is this who I really want? Is this the situation that I really want? And it's, you know, Nick's a good guy. It comes from a good benign place. And one thing that I've known from my life, but also from the therapy that I do, is sometimes real harm is done with the best of intentions. Yes. And this is why I tell people, candor is better than mystery when it comes to forming a healthy relationship. You know what could have helped Nick and Eleanor and their family? Family therapy? You betcha. But I know there can be a lot of hesitation to start therapy. It's true. In a recent survey from today's sponsor, BetterHelp, they found that 76% of people believe mental health care can help, but so many still hold back because of stigma. BetterHelp connects you to a licensed therapist who is trained to give you helpful, unbiased advice. To get started, click the link below or go to betterhelp.com slash cinematherapy. And fill out the questionnaire to assess your specific needs. You'll get matched with a therapist, in most cases, in 48 hours or less. That's approximately one flight to Singapore. Depends, yep. BetterHelp has a network of over 30,000 therapists with a wide range of expertise. And they're committed to helping you find a therapist who's a good fit for you. You can easily switch to a new therapist at no additional cost if the first one you're matched with isn't the best fit. You can also choose a time that's most convenient for you for your therapy sessions. You can also choose how you want to do your therapy sessions. A phone call, a video chat, or even via messaging. How about from a yacht in international waters? If you have a cell signal, I guess, and there's licensure considerations, but sure. It's so convenient and personalized, it really helps in overcoming a lot of the barriers that many people face in starting therapy. Over 4 million people have used BetterHelp to start living a healthier, happier life. So if you think you might benefit from therapy, click the link below or go to betterhelp.com slash cinematherapy. You'll get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp so you can connect with a therapist and see if it helps you. I know when there's something on your mind. And he's already, he showed his best friend. Hey, I've got a ring. Wasn't that long ago that you were sure you were moving back home? And, I mean, Rachel loves her job in New York. Yeah. We're gonna figure that out. You're going to figure it out. Correct. Rachel, I get it. It's hard. You need a plan. And you can't have a plan if you're not telling the truth. Yeah, how can you make a plan if she doesn't know? And who he's dating. It's like, you just never know what's quite going on in that gorgeous head of his. This is very true to a lot of couples therapy. Good people, real love, genuine emotion, but lack of transparency and then meddling relatives can do a lot of damage. Particularly his mother. Always wanted us to get married. I guess we weren't ready then. Dude, ever since primary school, you were always going to be. This, okay, this happened in the script. Like, this was not we shot one scene and shot a different scene and then mushed them together. They wrote it this way. And this is brilliant storytelling to have each of these scenes playing off of each other. And informing each other's scenes. It's such good writing. Leaving everything to bloody Alistair and Eddie. I'm not working out on anything. I met a girl. I fell in love and I want to marry her. And it can't just be one thing or the other. Uh, no, no, no, no, no. It's, it's not that simple. You know that. I really admire you. It takes guts coming all the way over here. Facing Nick's family. Especially when Eleanor isn't exactly in your corner. What drives me crazy is she's acting nice, but she's not being nice. It's duplicitous. Very, very two-faced. What would your relationship with Rachel be like if you got married? I mean, okay, you're, you're Nicholas Young. You're untouchable. You always have been. But Rachel's not. And if she becomes Mrs. Nicholas Young, every day for her is going to be a struggle. Man, it is such a brilliant filmmaking technique to be jumping between these two conversations. Having them sort of inform each other. And it also, it adds to the tension of what's going on. Because every time you leave Rachel to go back to Nick, there's the tension of, oh, how much more is Amanda, you know, getting her hooks in? Yeah. Right? Like, how much is that hurting? And every time we leave Nick, it's a question of, is he going to figure out these things that his friend is saying that are true and that Nick has just been ignoring? Well, Amanda is sowing seeds of doubt and trying to drive a wedge and sink this relationship and, you know, drive a romantic rival away. Whereas Colin, I think, is just being a good friend. Yeah, he's literally trying to help him out. He's like, dude, have you thought about this and this? Like, these are real problems. Yeah. Like, I'm not saying don't be with the woman you love. I'm saying have a plan and think it through. And the issue for Nick, again, great intentions. He wants a simple life. This is part of the reason why he never told her about his family and that they're wealthy is because he wanted to live in the New York fairytale life, which honestly, the life that they're living in New York is still pretty posh. It's not bad. These people aren't just rich, okay? They're crazy rich. But he's living in a fantasy. Yes. And it's comfortable there and it's happy there. But because he's not facing reality, it's going to hurt the person that he loves the most. He's hurting everyone because he wants to have things both ways. And he hasn't done the work to figure out if he can do that or not. You can hurt people through malicious intent and you can hurt people through naive optimism. I relate to Nick. And Nick's not a villain in this piece, but he does need to wake up and he does need to mature so that he can be a supportive partner. This honestly, the first time I watched the movie, felt like the most unrealistic thing. Like, who would cheat on Gemma Chan? That is not realistic. Oh, I've got thoughts that I know you do. But then you've got... I don't want to make a scene. You find out I'm having an affair with another woman and you're worried about making a scene. You'd rather I scream and carry on? Yes. Honestly, I wish you would. It would show you care about more than what people thought of you and your family. Try and turn this on me. He projects onto her a lot. He does. Of course not. You're always the prettiest, richest, most perfect girl in the room. Okay, so men often cheat on their exceptional wives or partners with lesser people. And I'll talk about why in a second. Jewelry you buy is the very minute of my life I'm not reminded of it. Just tired. I'm tired of having nothing I do matter, including having an affair. Of course, what you do matters. So he's placed all these expectations on himself to measure up to her family status, to measure up to how amazing she is. And he feels like he always falls short. That's not her fault. She's got nothing to apologize for, for being herself. And she was always fine. Better than fine with who he was. She just wanted him. Insecurity can be a relationship killer because we project onto the other person our greatest fears about ourselves or the things that we hate the most about ourselves. That that's what they see in us. And that's what he's doing nonstop here. And it poisons the well. So I specialize in helping couples heal from infidelity. Yeah, you deal with cheating couples regularly. A lot. Yeah. And one of the patterns that I see is when men cheat, very often women assume, well, she must be prettier than me, smarter than me, more successful than me, better than me somehow. He must have leveled up. Right. And then they see who he cheated with. They go, her? Yeah. Egg? She's really funny. Well, let's hope so. Because very often what happens is the insecurity. I don't feel good enough for the woman that I'm with. So I'm going to go with somebody where I feel superior. I'm going to go with somebody where I don't feel insecure anymore because they're less than the person that I'm with. This is one of the many ways that insecurity is a relationship killer. And this is a problem of societal expectations. And I'm going to use the P word. Patriarchy. This is how patriarchy hurts men and women, both. Is society has created these expectations that men must be big and strong and successful. And if you are a man with a woman who is more successful than you, you are less than. That has been internalized, not just by men, but by women. So this causes a problem. Where women apologize for their success. Women apologize for their success. You know, she's feeding into the same problem in a much lesser way. But she is, you know, he's pointing out things that she did that were wrong. They were wrong. He was wrong. That's quite big. Yeah. Like it's two different levels. Her errors she committed in the relationship did not kill the relationship. Correct. They were easily correctable. Right. If there was just openness. A couple of the things he lays at her feet are valid. Like when he says, you found out that I'm having an affair and you're worried about making a scene, right? Instead of worried about your own feelings or our relationship, or just all of this going on, it's more about appearances. Yeah. That's a valid critique. For sure. And that comes from her family. That comes from where she comes from. But everything else he lays at her feet about how he's not good enough, how he doesn't measure up, how... And then he makes it her fault. Project, project, project. Because again, she always loved and accepted him as he was. Yeah. It's not her fault. You have every reason to be upset. Not done yet. There's also this gutted, bloody fish that Araminta's friends left for me in my hotel room, on my bed, next to the words, catch this, you gold-dicking... A scene from The Godfather. Written in big, fat serial killer letters. Is that what happened? I love that he says... Please tell me that's all. Whoops. Before he starts to apologize and she goes, I'm not done yet. I love that. The little designer handbags and sunglasses. I don't care about that. I don't care that your ex-girlfriend told me all this crap. Is that you didn't tell me any of it. Yeah. I screwed up. Why? I really messed up. Why? Were you trying to test me? Why would you do that? I made a mistake. When we first met, you had no idea who I was, who my family were. You didn't care. Yeah, I don't care about that stupid stuff. Well, exactly. You are so different from all of the women that I grew up with. And that's valid. And I love who I am around you. That's super valid. I don't want that to change. And that's selfish, I know. It's a great scene. I'm trying to be independent on your own. But I'm here now. So whiny and bratty. It's perfect. She plays it so well. Right? It was so gross. But I buried it. Well, it's whiny and bratty, but like in a playful, pouty, fun in a relationship way. Okay, points to Nick. Accountability kink activated. Because he's recognizing something crucial here. Good intentions don't mean that your actions weren't hurtful and harmful. And very often it's like, well, because I intended good, I can't be in the wrong. And so for him to say, okay, I love who I am around you. I love that you're not like women who are after me for my wealth. I love that we just have a real human connection. That's all beautiful. But it was selfish of me to try and keep that in a cocoon instead of preparing you for my family and the world that I come from, which takes a lot of preparation, honestly. It is a dog eat dog, like. It's so cutthroat. Cutthroat world of people scrambling for attention. And so, and I mean, rightfully so. There's billions of dollars at stake. Yeah. I don't know if rightfully so, but like. Understandably so. Because that's how that world operates. And so I love his accountability. And also accountability and vulnerability are how you fix things. He did screw up. And he doesn't do what a lot of people do, where he takes a step into an apology and a hard left into blame, right? He doesn't say, I made a mistake, but you could have done this or you could. No, he just, it's completely, I own it. I totally messed up. Yeah. I should have told you. And with that comes a commitment to do things differently. He says, I'm here now, you know, let's talk about what our next steps are. And I've read in some of our comments that people feel we might go a little too hard on romantic comedies. I'll tell you why romantic comedies, generally, it's all about relationships and the messaging is terrible. When romantic comedies show you what a healthy relationship looks like. And there's still drama. Yeah, there's great drama. Ah, I love it. Allow me to destroy your gallery. Bullshits. Derivative. That I love. I absolutely love. Okay. So we have an entire episode on Michelle Yeoh and the family dynamics here. Mom, what's all this about? Rachel. That you all are going to want to watch. I'm sorry to tell you, but Rachel has been lying to us about her family and her mother. What, what are you talking about? Mom, you didn't. Mom. You had no right. You did not. You're lying. Do you have any idea the scandal this was caused for Rachel to hide something like this? Well, and the assumption is that she was hiding it. She wouldn't have. Exactly. He knows her. We cannot be linked to this sort of family. I don't want any part of your family. Rachel. Let me go. And then we see here, oh, it's not, not all Eleanor's fault. Yeah. But that's, we, again, get into that in a whole episode, just talking about Eleanor and her relationship with everybody. Because it's a lot. Lots of angles to explore this scene from. The different family dynamics. What I want to hone in on here is that Nick defends Rachel and her character. Potentially at the cost of his relationship with his Ama, who's like in charge of everything. And his mother who, you know, kind of runs the show. She says, don't go after her. I forbid it. And he immediately is just like. That comes down to a couple of things. One, he loves Rachel. But two, he's a person of integrity. And he knows that her integrity is being called into question. And he won't stand for it because he knows she has good character. She is somebody who tells the truth. She wouldn't have. In a lesser rom-com, he would have believed his mother. And it would drive a wedge. And he would turn to Rachel and be like, how could you? How could you lie to us? And she would have been like, I do, I wouldn't. Here, he just immediately. Hey, let's talk to Astrid and Michael and see how they're doing. I'm going to send someone for the rest of my stuff. I don't want to talk to you about my visitation rights. This is such a badass fist pumping scene on her part. Don't worry about packing your things. You bought this apartment. You keep it. We're leaving. What do you mean you're leaving? Where are you going to go? I have 14 apartment buildings that I own. So probably one of those. And you'll see Cassian when it's good for him. Not when it's good for you. Spicy. Hey, look. You know it's not just my fault that things didn't work out. It's mostly your fault. You're right. I shouldn't have kept things from you. Hidden my shoes. Turned down jobs. Charity work. Worrying that it might make you feel lesser than. But let's be clear. The problem with our marriage isn't my family's money. It's that you're a coward. You gave up on us. But I just realized it's not my job to make you feel like a man. I can't make you something you're not. Oof. Oof! Okay, okay, okay, okay. That's some hot sauce on it. That's some sauce on it. And you know what the sauce was? They're both barely playing anything. If you look closely at their faces, what's playing it is the music. They're both quite still. What absolutely makes it a kill shot is she just looks down and looks up. That's it. Everything else is very still and calm and it's Astrid. She's very collected and cool and she's not going to get upset. But I can't make you something you're not. Bing bong. Murder! Oh, so good! It is a tiny little acting choice that along with a dynamite script makes that the worst kill shot ever. It's brutal. It's so good! Normally, I wouldn't be on the side of the person who's boasting that they own 14 apartment buildings. Here... Eat the rich. Here it... Here it works because the point is not I'm rich and I'm better than you. The point is I'm not going to be ashamed of who I am. Anymore. Because you tried to make me feel ashamed of it. I'm not going to hide my shoes. I'm not going to not do charity work. I'm not going to stop doing the things that I'm passionate about. He's trying to make her small and she's like, no, no, no. I am not small. Yeah. And when he talks about I'm not the only reason our relationship failed, what she did from a good place, she tiptoed around to not hurt him. She had a husband. She loved him. She didn't want to hurt him. But at what cost? The cost was she was sacrificing herself. It was a form of self-betrayal and it was a form of enabling him. Now, I'm not saying this to lay this at her feet. I'm saying this because as a couples therapist, Tutatango, we always look at relationships. How can we do things differently moving forward? Moving forward, she's going to be her authentic true self, which means she'll either be alone and happy or she'll be with somebody who appreciates and honors and cherishes who she is. Statistically, she's not going to find somebody who's richer and more powerful than her. But statistically, it's pretty likely that she'll be able to find somebody who's like, look at my kick-ass wife. Yeah. This is awesome. Have you seen how amazing she is? And again, Tutatango, he's the one who killed the relationship. Yeah. And it wasn't because he wasn't good enough and it wasn't because he wasn't loved. It's because he gave up. And why did he give up? Because he was insecure. When she says, I can't make you something you're not, the whole reason he's not a man is because he lacks the confidence to do the right thing. He's not manly enough to be lesser than in this weird societally created matrix of you are rich and powerful, therefore big and good and strong. Yeah. That's dumb. Yeah. Are you a good person? Can you equal her in goodness? Then you're probably going to be equal and that's all you need. I feel so called out by this big sweaty guy because that was me on every single plane in Southeast Asia my whole life growing up. When the sun hits the horizon, I get down on one knee. Paint the picture, Nick. And the rest of the world would fall away because it would just be you. And because it's just you. Sorry, I can help you with that. She's super sweaty too. It's Southeast Asia, man. It's a million degrees out there. 400% humidity. Everybody okay? Because I just need 30 seconds with this woman. So polite. I love it. Coming through. Sorry. It's just such a great subversion. This is a far throw from a hidden paradise. But wherever you are in the world, that's where I belong. If you've seen the movie, you get the significance of that. It's a big moment. Rachel Chu, will you marry me? If you haven't seen the movie, you need to see the movie. Yeah, why haven't you seen the movie? And make me the happiest man in this world. So this is a Cinderella rags to riches story. I mean, everything down to that. She loses her shoe at one point. It's Cinderella, guys. But it's also, there's a bit of Jane Austen here. Sure. Because it's class struggle, right? Yep. This is going to be some flight back to New York. Listen, they're not struggling against each other, but they're struggling against the class system that has been established. Well, we talked about Michael and Astrid. And on the one hand, Michael felt like, well, she's upper, upper, upper class. And I'm just upper class. I'm not good enough. And here it could feasibly go the opposite direction. It could, it doesn't. But Nick could, because everyone around Nick is saying, she's not one of us. She doesn't come from our world. She doesn't come from all this. Well, she's just a normal girl. The solution that Nick finds, that Michael really needed to find as well, is that the worth of a person isn't their family. The worth of a person isn't their wealth or their social status. The worth of a person, one, is just that they're a person. But in a relationship, it's their character. Do they show up with integrity? Do they show up with an ability to engage in perspective taking, to take accountability, to make changes, and to love you the way that you need to be loved? Michael failed to learn that lesson. Michael let insecurity steer the ship. Nick, on the other hand, if there were a woman on the planet richer than him, but he actually loved her, it would be about the person in front of him. Yeah, it wouldn't bother him at all. And the fact that Rachel doesn't come from money also doesn't bother him at all. Well, it doesn't bother him at all that she's clearly much smarter than him. Yeah. I mean, it's made obvious over and over and over that she can outthink just about anybody. Yeah. And he's like, awesome. See how smart she is? And not only does it not bother him, he wants that, because she represents a life that he never had, which is a life that is stripped of all these trappings, and is just real and human and about connection without all of this pressure. I think this is such a beautiful scene. And it speaks to the fact that you can have plans, and you can have dreams and fantasies about how you want everything to go. Romantically or otherwise, there's what you fantasize about, and there's what actually happens. He had, here's how I'm going to propose. It's going to be amazing. And what he got was, I'm on a plane. I don't want to lose her. I want her to know just how much I care, and that I'm willing to make it work. I'm doing it now. Alan fell down a mountain when he proposed. Okay. Let's not make a mountain out of... It wasn't a molehill, but it was a smaller hill. It was basically that scene from Hot Rod. They had to go find the body and revive him. No, but... It was 20 feet tops. But you had how you thought it was going to go. Yeah. And how it actually happened. Megan's really proud of that moment. She loves telling that story. But what's beautiful about that is, you guys have a life together. Yeah. Which no doubt has had twists and turns of, here's what we planned and what we hoped for, and here's how it went. But we have each other, and that's what really matters. Here's what I want to know. I want to hone in on the guys in this movie. What do you think Michael or Nick could have done differently to save them and the people they love some heartache? And explain to me in detail down below why Kitty Pong is really the hero of this story. Okay. So until next time... You have a cocktail dress in your trunk? I'm not an animal, Rachel. And watch movies. 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