Review: Andrew Ahn's The Wedding Banquet is an amiable if slight film

Ang Lee’s classic romantic dramedy The Wedding Banquet is now 32 years old, and besides being old enough for a mortgage, the film also straddles a significant cultural divide—the legalization of gay marriage.

Lee’s 1993 rom-dramedy of manners centers on a queer couple who must hide their relationship from one partner’s parents, who do not know their son is gay. Mishaps and accidental babies ensue, with everyone learning a lesson of acceptance and tolerance in the end. But it is now 2025 so why would a gay couple hide their relationship? Because conservatism exists, especially that which also straddles a significant generational divide.

Updating Lee’s film, and working with original screenwriter James Schamus, director Andrew Ahn moves the cultural divide from Taiwan to South Korea. In his new iteration of The Wedding Banquet, handsome, wealthy Min (Han Gi-chan) is the scion of a rich and powerful Korean family who want him to come home and join the family conglomerate. Acknowledging his artistic sensibility, they offer him the creative directorship of their new fashion brand. Min, however, wants to stay in the US with his partner of five years, Chris (Bowen Yang). But with his student visa about to expire and his family unwilling to extend his stay abroad any longer, Min needs a quick fix to remain in the US. Enter the sham marriage conceit of the original film.

It's a clever update, trading the politics of the 90s for a story more focused on found family, generation gaps, cultural divides, and mommy issues. Min loves his stern grandmother, Ja-young (Youn Yuh-jung), but he feels abandoned by her and their relationship is stiff and strained. Similarly, his partner in wedding hijinks is Angela (Kelly Marie Tran), who has her own relationship drama and issues with her supportive yet domineering mother, May (Joan Chen). Adding to the hijinks is a whoopsy-baby and Chris’s commitment issues.

Ahn’s Wedding Banquet is an amiable if slight film. It works best when Min and Angela are dealing with their grand/mothers, and Youn Yuh-jung and Joan Chen shine in their respective roles. Both women get standout moments coming to terms with their maternal roles and how they have or have not supported their grand/children. It’s also a smart update to bring Ja-young into the wedding hijinks, framing Min’s off-screen, intolerant grandfather as the reason for upholding the lie while still allowing Ja-young to participate in some tomfoolery. Youn is fantastic as a dignified woman exasperated by her grandson’s silliness. Chen is equally good as a mother overcompensating for a difficult past, and whenever Youn and Chen get to share scenes, The Wedding Banquet shines.

It's a little less sparkly in the hands of the central cast, though. The characters are thinly written—Angela’s partner, Lee, doesn’t have a personality beyond “is Lily Gladstone”—and while Tran and Han have enough moments wrangling with their complicated maternal relationships to make up for the lack of characterization, Bowen Yang cannot overcome the shallow depths of Chris. With gay marriage legal, Chris and Min should just get hitched to get Min his green card, but despite five years and cohabiting together, Chris balks at marriage. Why? He’s afraid of commitment! Why? What if he ruins it! Why does he think he’ll ruin it? Because! Because why? Because! And that is the extent of Chris’s character. Well, that and “birds”, but I really need writers to stop acting like being interested in birds is a personality unto itself because it isn’t.

Still, The Wedding Banquet is so sincere and kind-hearted, it’s hard to get too annoyed by its paper-thin premise and insufficient characterizations. The cast is strong enough to mostly overcome these issues—Lily Gladstone can make you care just by gazing out from the screen with her soulful eyes—and the emotional beats land, albeit in the shallow end, though Ahn has to work a little harder to justify a sham marriage in 2025 and he’s not entirely successful, relying too much on Chris being a commitment-phobe in a long-term relationship.

But there is enough humor to mostly paper over the weakest spots, and there are always Youn and Chen, swooping in to add a dash of depth to The Wedding Banquet that quietly underscores that today’s silly youths are tomorrow’s regretful elders, and that it is never too late to extend love and acceptance. Plus, you’re never too old for wedding hijinks or a little tomfoolery, especially in service of a love story.

The Wedding Banquet is now playing exclusively in theaters.