As far as R-rated studio comedies about female friendship go, I think I’ve just seen the closest successor to Bridesmaids yet. Crazy Rich Asians co-screenwriter Adele Lim’s directorial debut Joy Ride is an embarrassment of riches as a comedy. The script is so sharp, the performances all ring true, and most importantly, the 90-minute runtime makes it impossible for this film to overstay its welcome. Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu and Sabrina Wu are so funny together and have a great chemistry that really sells the ups and downs of the central friendship and gives the viewer a genuine emotional investment in where this wacky adventure goes.

Audrey (Park) and Lolo (Cola) have been best friends since they were kids. As adults, Audrey has become a very important lawyer, and Lolo is an artist whose work hasn’t exactly caught on yet, and lives in Lolo’s guest house. A work trip allows the two to take a trip to China with the intention of meeting Audrey’s birth mother. They meet up with Deadeye (Wu), a relative who mostly spends their time on internet chatrooms about K-pop groups, and Kat (Hsu), an actress on a Chinese soap opera, a onetime party girl who is now engaged to her very buff religious nut costar. Hijinks ensue.

The chemistry of these four leads is so lived-in and believable, and that’s the main thing Joy Ride has going for it. It also helps that the screenplay doesn’t waste its time anywhere. There are lots of big comedic set pieces, but the film is exactly as long as it needs to be. Just enough cinematic real estate is spent on everything that happens. Unlike a lot of raunchy comedies, this one stays believable when it decides to go all heartfelt on you in act three. I’ve seen a lot of these where the film doesn’t earn its final-act detour into more serious territory and this one manages to make that work. I even teared up a little bit in one moment near the end.

Most audiences will recognize Ashley Park from the Netflix series Emily in Paris. I know her as the Gretchen in the Mean Girls Broadway musical. She’s a very capable lead here, and her grounded performance leads way for all the wackiness happening around her, and she’s a great foil to everyone. I hadn’t seen Sherry Cola in anything before, but she just about walks away with this movie. Her comedic timing is so sharp and she’s so charismatic, I hope she gets lots of other work from this. Recent Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu is also, shockingly, very funny here, proving the line between comedy and drama to be not that big of a thing for her. And Sabrina Wu, who I hadn’t seen before, straddles the line between wacky/comedic and genuine emotion effortlessly.

Since Adele Lim is not writing the Crazy Rich Asians sequel, it’s nice that she’s still responsible for expensive looking studio comedies for adults where Asian women are first on the call sheet. This is her feature directorial debut, and she knocks it out of the park and makes it look like she’s been doing this kind of thing for a long time. Cherry Chevapravatdumrong And Teresa Hsiao, two Family Guy writers penned the screenplay and it’s surprising given that’s their only real credits, that they were able to pull off a feature screenplay that’s this assured on their first time out.

Overall, I had a total blast with Joy Ride and I hope it becomes that little movie that could, the summer sleeper hit that we all need right now in a crowded marketplace suffering from blockbuster fatigue. It’s certainly good enough to, and I hope a wide audience discovers it in theaters. Raunchy R-rated comedies have had a limited audience as of late, even the really good ones. It might seem like the representation on display here could limit Joy Ride’s audience, but I think there’s enough here for the film to appeal to just about anyone. Grab some friends, go out for drinks first, and see this one with a crowd. It’s the closest thing to a guaranteed good time I’ve seen all summer.