The Wedding Banquet (2025)
Directed by: Andrew Ahn
Premise: A remake of the 1993 film. A lesbian couple struggling to pay for IVF treatments cohabitates with a gay couple facing separation when one of their visas expires. They agree to marry each other for mutual benefits.
What Works: The Wedding Banquet combines romance and a comedy of manners. The film centers on two couples and the four characters are very likable. Lily Gladstone and Kelly Marie Tran play Lee and Angela, a lesbian couple who are trying to conceive a baby with IVF treatments. Han Gi-Chan and Bowen Yang are cast as Chris and Min, a gay couple who face separation when Min’s grandmother recalls him to South Korea. Gladstone and Tran and Han and Yang are enjoyable to watch together. They are convincing as couples but also as four people who have been friends for a long time. The Wedding Banquet is a remake of the 1993 movie and the premise is rooted in the sexual politics of that decade but the filmmakers find ways to reinvent the material for today’s culture. That’s one of the most outstanding qualities of The Wedding Banquet. The filmmakers acknowledge the ways homophobia persists but the film doesn’t take an easy or obvious route. This is evident in the performances by Joan Chen as Angela’s mother and Youn Yuh-jung as Min’s grandmother. Chen’s character treats her daughter’s sexuality as a good guy badge while the grandmother is concerned about public relations in her home country but their motives are later revealed to be more complicated. The characterization and the empathy of The Wedding Banquet is its best feature. The movie is also an interesting critique of culture and tradition and where those elements intersect with identity. The film questions the meaning of these traditions and if they are relevant to contemporary life.
What Doesn’t: A lot of relationship stories reach a crisis point that imperils the future. In The Wedding Banquet this convention takes a severe turn that raises existential questions about the future of these relationships. The filmmakers don’t make enough of this plot point. It’s too big a deal to be swept aside and the characters don’t do anything meaningful to rebuild or make amends nor do they ever really confront the tension underneath the relationship that led to this crisis in the first place. This flaw hangs over the movie. Love stories and relationship dramas depend on the audience wanting to see these characters reconcile and live happily ever after but the crack in the relationships and the lack of meaningful reconciliation puts a damper on that appeal that the filmmakers never quite overcome.
Bottom Line: There is a lot in The Wedding Banquet that is thoughtful and the performances are terrific. The film suffers from some misjudged storytelling choices but the intelligence of the film and the likable and nuanced characters overcome those misgivings.
Episode: #1046 (May 4, 2025)