It’s hard to remake a film that means so much to people, but Andrew Ahn’s The Wedding Banquet is a charming and poignant update to the film Ang Lee released in 1993.
And it truly is an update. Though things are precarious and uncertain in our current political environment and LGBTQ+ rights and acceptance still have a long way to go, the world has changed a lot since the early 90s when the AIDS epidemic in the US was still claiming thousands of lives per year and same-sex marriage was two decades from legalization. Where Lee’s film centered on a gay couple in New York City, Ahn’s expands the narrative, adding new complications, additional relationships, and taking time to comment on issues like performative allyship.
Ahn’s Banquet centers on Angela (Kelly Marie Tran, Star Wars: The Last Jedi), a Seattle-based scientist, and her partner Lee (Academy Awards nominee Lily Gladstone), who runs a local Pride resource center. They have just completed a second unsuccessful round of IVF and find themselves unsure what to do next. The ladies live in the house Lee grew up in, renting their garage apartment to Chris (Wicked‘s Bowen Yang) and Min (Han Gi-Chan, Where Your Eyes Linger).
Though they are a foursome, the connecting throughline lies with Angela, the link that ties the couples together. She and Chris have been best friends since freshman orientation on their first day of college. She also loves Lee and is happy to be by her side through their fertility journey, though Angela feels insecure about her own potential as a parent because of a precarious relationship with her mother (a resplendent Joan Chen).
Because the story centers on Angela, Kelly Marie Tran is the emotional core. Through her we feel all the insecurity and trepidation that leaves her prone to spontaneous, ill-considered choices, but we can also understand some of them because Tran is easy to sympathize with.
As Angela and Lee debate their next steps, Chris and Min face a different challenge. Min, who has been in the US on a student visa, also happens to be the heir to a multinational corporation and his grandmother (Academy Award winner Youn Yuh-jung) thinks it’s time for him to give up his art hobby to take over their latest acquisition. Min doesn’t want to run the family business, but will have to return to Korea otherwise. His only other option is a green card, which he could get if he were married, something he had already been contemplating. Unfortunately for Min, his boyfriend Chris happens to be extremely commitment-phobic and seizes on the green card situation as an excuse to decline Min’s proposal.
The story plays out almost like a sitcom with misunderstandings, mistakes, and a new idea to keep Min stateside. Though some plot points are predictable and a bit too tidy, it’s still a lot of fun watching the increasingly chaotic events unfold. A drunken night out leads to ill-advised sex. There are breakups and make ups. In a nod to the original film, there is a rush to clear the house of anything that could give away that its occupants are not straight. “Everything in this house is gay!” screams Angela as she frantically clears books from shelves. And then there is the pageantry of the titular wedding banquet, complete with over-the-top photo shoots, traditional clothing, and ceremonies no one can quite remember the meaning of. What Ahn delivers is a celebration of both queer and Asian representation, wrapped in an accessible, crowd-pleasing comedy.
Min and Lee work out a plan for Min to marry Angela in exchange for the money to pay for Lee’s third and final attempt at IVF. Angela’s mother May, who reacted poorly when her daughter came out before eventually becoming a preening peacock of an ally, cries, “I put years into campaigning for gay marriage and this is what I get. My daughter is marrying a man!” Min’s grandmother, on the other hand, suspects something isn’t right and hops on a plane to Seattle to meet who she assumes is a gold-digging fiancé and to insist on a traditional Korean ceremony.
Joan Chen and Youn Yi-jung are delightful as the two matriarchs watching from the sidelines. Chen, a standout in last year’s Sundance premiere Dìdi, is mostly known for her dramatic work in film (The Last Emperor) and TV (Twin Peaks). She is so funny in this role that one can’t help but wonder how her career might have been different if she had been able to show her comedic talents more often. But dominating the cast is Youn, who displays the same command of the screen that made her a star for years in Korea before American audiences fell in love with her Oscar-winning performance in Minari.
Though Youn is sure to be the audience’s favorite, the rest of the core ensemble is no less deserving of accolades. Yang, who is frequently the funniest person in any given scene from Saturday Night Live to his other Ahn collaboration Fire Island, is still funny here, but much more subdued, quieter, more introspective. Chris wants more time to decide on his future with Min. He has the luxury of that because he lives in a world where he has choices. Too many choices maybe, because he seems paralyzed by them.
Another fan favorite is sure to be Han Gi-Chan, a South Korean TV star making his American movie debut. He brings an earnest joy to Min, an effervescent ray of optimism you can’t help but love.
One of the few missteps in this charming romantic comedy befalls Lily Gladstone, not because she does anything wrong, but because she is underutilized. Lee, the most mature and steady of the core four, is sometimes pushed to the wayside to make way for her more unwieldy housemates. Like Chen, though, after a lot of dramatic work, it’s nice to see Gladstone try her hand at something lighter. Though her screentime is somewhat limited, she makes good use of it.
Modernizing the script James Schamus originally co-wrote with Ang Lee and Neil Peng, Andrew Ahn’s The Wedding Banquet dreams of a world in which people are capable of change, parents and children can overcome their differences, and happy endings are possible.
Grade: B+
This review is from 2025 Sundance Film Festival where The Wedding Banquet has its world premiere. The film will be released in the U.S. by Bleecker Street on April 18, 2025.
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