There was something quietly radical about Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet, his first international movie breakthrough. Not just in its openly queer subject matter, which was not something to scoff about even in 1993, but in the way it presented earnestly a comical premise, expanded it in unexpected ways, and came to a very unique resolution that stands out as much now as it did then. It’s no wonder that Lee was able to build his career off of that, up to and including perhaps the most famous LGBTQ film, Brokeback Mountain.
Lee co-wrote The Wedding Banquet with his frequent collaborator James Schamus, who over thirty years later has now also co-written its remake with Andrew Ahn, the new film’s director. There is some fun potential in revisiting the premise of a gay immigrant to the U.S. who has to fake a marriage for the sake of his traditionalist family, but Ahn expands that story significantly, particularly concerning the point-of-view of the bride and making the film a much more all-encompassing queer love-in, much like his prior movie Fire Island, to some mixed results.
Here it is two gay couples at the centre of the story rather than just one. Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) has been in a long-term relationship with Lee (Lily Gladstone), who is determined to start a family together; while Korean student immigrant Min (Han Gi-chan) lives with his boyfriend Chris (Bowen Yang) in Lee’s garage -Chris being an old college buddy of Angela’s. With Min’s VISA coming to an end and Chris unwilling to marry him due to his reservations around Min likely being outed and ostracized by his wealthy family, as well as his own commitment issues, Min and Lee concoct a plan to have Min marry Angela so he can get a green card and in turn provide her and Lee with money for IVF treatment. The plan begins to go awry when Min’s grandmother Ja-Young (Youn Yuh-jung) comes over from Korea to meet the bride.
A messy and complicated scenario, and that last point makes it even more so when it goes in a very different direction from the original film that all but neuters the starting conflict. But Ahn seems much more interested in making the film about the relationships of the couples rather than between the protagonist and his parents. Indeed though Min carries the chief thrust of the plot, he is fourth-billed and the script endeavours to centre all four lead characters equally, each with their own conflict and motivations and strange feelings about the situation they are in. It tries to be a more rounded movie (and in fairness the boyfriend of the original does at times feel like a side character). The couples feel more well-defined as a result, the relationships lived-in, and the actors are very good; Tran and Gladstone in particular have a very sweet chemistry, the conversations and conflicts around starting a family making for some very real and compelling human drama, as is the strained relationship between Angela and her mother May (Joan Chen), an award-winning member of the local PFLAG society who seems to be invested for her own personal clout more than genuine support for her daughter and the community. That kind of complex dynamic between an LGBTQ kid and their parent as well as the raised issues of family and marriage through a modern queer lens are interesting themes that deserve to be explored. But they come at the expense of the issue that gives rise to the plot in the first place.
Despite its moments of farcical material, The Wedding Banquet doesn’t actually feature as much calculated deceit and screwball shenanigans as it promises; nor does it feature much of a Wedding Banquet -the equivalent of its titular ceremony being a relatively small scene of the movie that doesn't actually result in a marriage. There are a few scattered moments where Min and Angela must pretend to be a couple (and the sorely abandoned suggestion that Chris and Lee fake a relationship as well), but way more time is spent among those privy to the charade and dealing with the problems, individual and intersecting, of the two real couples. And some of it, particularly on Chris's end -full of repetitive stubbornness and denial, can be exhausting, and that is even without the story's extra complicating twist, moved up in a film that isn't so spread out in its timeline.
Min's relationship with his family and need to keep his sexuality hidden from them and their circles is only a minor plot beat, perhaps out of Ahn feeling such a premise was overdone in LGBTQ narratives since the original, or maybe out of Han being the least known of his stars in North America. But there is a casualty to him not having a relationship with his parents and culture when their influence is supposed to be the pressure point of the plot -his parents don't make an appearance, and neither does his apparently very homophobic grandfather. The conflict between generations is not of particular interest to this movie except as a broad plot device, and it is a bit of a shame given how fascinating a thing it was in the original film, and how both Youn and Chen are specific highlights of this movie. It is worth noting the weeds of the rift between Angela and May are never fully resolved, they are just brushed by in the waves of another crisis.
But it cannot be said that Ahn doesn't know his audience, and much like in Fire Island, gears the film specifically and with no holes barred towards the millennial queer community. The film is unabashed with its queer cultural staples, its sense of humour, its environment and its context -Lee's day job is as an administrator with the local Pride organization. And by indulging in this while also discussing with sincerity those themes of commitment, marriage, and starting a family, which don't often get discussed in this kind of a platform from the the LGBTQ perspective, the movie makes a statement that feels significant and is infused with an easily sympathetic heart. What is also interesting is that the movie adapts the unconventional ending of the original film to its new context, and while it isn't quite as provocative, it does assert with a similar boldness its distinct unit.
Even in its moments of dimmer or melancholy emotion, The Wedding Banquet is driven by fairly tangible queer joy from everyone involved. Those vibes are powerful, but they are vibes only, and the movie's dregs and oversights still leave it feeling flat in a number of places, perhaps uninterested in engaging with the premise it inherits. There is still some sweetness to it not to be undervalued, and thematic representation that matters. Bring a card to this wedding, not silverware.
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