‘The Wedding Banquet’ Review: Bowen Yang and Lily Gladstone Star in a Blandly Charming Ang Lee Remake
In an era when gay marriage is legal, same-sex parenting is commonplace and the decision to build a nuclear family is, for many millennials, complicated not by cultural, sexual or familial impediments but rather ethical and financial ones, it might seem like an odd choice to remake Ang Lee’s 1993 “The Wedding Banquet.” But while watching Andrew Ahn’s amiable dramedy, which expands on the original premise while maintaining its central themes of found family and tolerance, one rarely questions the story’s relevance. More vitally, it lacks panache.
The movie follows a lesbian couple and a gay couple sharing a split-level Seattle residence: Lee (Lily Gladstone) and Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) live in the upper house, while Chris (Bowen Yang) and Min (Han Gi-chan) reside in the converted garage. The story begins conventionally, churning out exposition to introduce the foursome. And for a while, each couple scarcely amounts to more than a broad stroke and a conflict. Lee is a charmer eager for her in vitro fertilization treatments to result in pregnancy, while the crankier Angela worries that her strained relationship with her mother (Joan Chen) might impact her own parenting skills. The rudderless Chris and trust-fund endowed Min, meanwhile, are navigating Chris’s reluctance to commit to a marriage that would allow Min, who’s in danger of losing his green card, to stay in the country.
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Enter the wild inciting idea: a marriage and money exchange between Min and Angela, where Min secures his legal residency and Angela gets the funds for Lee’s IVF. Why this is the simplest solution to the couples’ troubles is never quite justified. Couldn’t Min, who’s rolling in family money, simply cover Lee’s treatments without the marriage? And why is Chris, an ostensibly rational person and devoted boyfriend, so categorically opposed to helping out his partner of five years and signing a marriage license?
The screenplay, credited to Ahn and Lee’s original co-writer James Schamus, doesn’t waste time lingering in these unknowns. Instead, it hurries to introduce its best character: Min’s sharp-witted grandmother (Youn Yuh-jung), who, upon learning of Min’s (fake) engagement, insists upon flying over from Korea for the wedding. Soon enough, Lee, Angela and Chris are rushing to prepare the house for Grandma’s arrival by cleansing it of queer miscellanea — a clever and farcical scene that also appears in the original movie.
Next to the foursome of millennial mess-ups, Lin’s grandmother and Angela’s mom are welcome screen presences. Yuh-jung and Chen bring a depth and dignity to their matriarchal roles that’s lost in the younger generation, who, despite a bundle of comedic chops, struggle to flesh out the thin characterizations they’ve been afforded. As our lead, Angela most vividly comes to life in scenes opposite her mother, where the screenplay lets her confront her mommy issues head-on instead of reiterating them in dialogue six times over. Min receives the same space to open up in scenes with his grandmother; and Chris, in moments opposite his spunky younger cousin (Bobo Le). That leaves the ever-talented Gladstone seemingly stranded in a screenplay that fails to give her enough of a character — a cardinal sin from which the movie never recovers.
Stylistically, “The Wedding Banquet” has the gauzy look and feel of prestige television. During a faux bachelorette party for Angela, the friends gather at a spacious queer dance club so clearly fictional it made me think of a meme: queer dance clubs rule; I wish they were real. In a broad and agreeable comedy such as this, it’s common practice to elevate reality. Ahn’s exceptional “Fire Island” did just that while remaining grounded in genuine feeling. But amid this movie’s overall blandness, the inauthenticity of its wish fulfillment sequences is thrown into sharper relief.
The movie does excel at toggling between comedy and sincerity, although the two modes are rarely channeled within the same sequences. If decent movies can make us laugh and then make us tear up, the best ones make us want to do both at the same time.
“The Wedding Banquet” is squarely of the former type, as evidenced in its ending. By this point, the exposition machine that was on full throttle in the first act seems to have petered out, and the denouement arrives without grand apology speeches or even that much dialogue at all. It’s somewhat refreshing that Ahn opted to let his characters rebuild their fractured relationships through knowing looks and wordless hugs rather than tearful exchanges. But there’s something cheap about tying a bow around their romances after the chaos they’ve all created.
It also feels necessary to note that, while the movie flaunts its progressive bona fides, it nonetheless ends in traditional fashion: marriage, monogamy, child rearing. The next “Wedding Banquet” doesn’t need to be poly, but hopefully it’ll have a dash more personality.
Grade: C+
“The Wedding Banquet” premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Bleecker Street will release it in theaters on Friday, April 18.
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