Solid cast: Kelly Marie Tran, Lily Gladstone, Han Gi-chan and Bowen Yang. Photo / Supplied
Solid cast: Kelly Marie Tran, Lily Gladstone, Han Gi-chan and Bowen Yang. Photo / Supplied
The Wedding Banquet, directed by Andrew Ahn, is out now.
At a dispiriting moment in history when “diversity” is being weaponised as a dirty word, it’s refreshing to watch a story about two couples’ romantic travails within the context of race, sexuality and the immigrant experience.
This remake of AngLee’s award-winning 1993 The Wedding Banquet is a lightly comedic romantic drama that hews close to the original, updated with some nice 21st-century developments.
In writer-director Andrew Ahn’s (Driveways) rendition, two Queer Asian-American couples team up to help one pair stay living together in the US, and the other to have a baby.
Chinese-American Angela (The Last Jedi’s Kelly Marie Tran) is trying to start a family with her girlfriend, Lee (played by Lily Gladstone from Killers of the Flower Moon), but repeated attempts at IVF are proving expensive. Angela’s best friend Chris, played by an uncharacteristically serious Bowen Yang, usually known for his Saturday Night Live comedy work, is worried for his boyfriend Min (Han Gi-chan), who wants to marry for a Green Card.
When Min makes the women an indecent proposal, the foursome’s dreams and decisions for the future are thrown into turmoil.
Ahn’s script certainly packs a lot in: important themes of identity and being true to oneself, strong representation, and a solid cast with most of the LGBTQ characters played by Rainbow actors.
This is admirable, but sadly the dialogue is clunky more often than affecting, except for a couple of poignant scenes where older family members impart wisdom and repair age-old hurts. These Asian matriarchs are played by famed older actresses Joan Chen (The Last Emperor) and Youn Yuh-jung (Oscar winner for Minari), the latter mesmerising as Min’s strict grandmother who orders him back to Korea to work in the family business.
Tonally, this Wedding Banquet is more drama with dashes of humour than a proper romcom, but there are a few witty bon mots: Chris has abandoned his dissertation because “queer theory takes the joy out of being gay”, while Joan Chen’s proud LGBTQ-allied mom boasts the women are using a donor who went to Yale: “His sperm was very expensive.”
It’s just a shame all this star power can’t make this relevant and timely movie a more enjoyable and moving affair.
