'The Wedding Banquet' Review: Andrew Ahn's Remake a Winsome Romance

The charming dramedy works best when Lily Gladstone and Kelly Marie Tran take over

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In 1993 director Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet hit theaters, a film that, sadly, isn’t available on any streaming platforms currently. Because of that, director Andrew Ahn’s remake is probably going to be people’s first time watching any version of the movie (it certainly was for me).

And because of this lack of prior awareness viewers coming to the film might be surprised that it’s not a straightforward comedy like the trailers have touted. What it is is a charming dramedy about finding love and seeking out one’s own identity strongly led by a set of great performances by Lily Gladstone and Kelly Marie Tran.

Couples Lee and Angela (Gladstone and Tran, respectively) and Chris and Min (Bowen Yang and Han Gi-Chan) are best friends and neighbors dealing with different relationship issues. Lee wants to have a child, while Angela is ambivalent, while Min wants to get married and Chris believes he’s not good enough. When Min’s grandmother declares it’s time for him to leave the US and take over the family business he says he can’t…because he’s getting married. Never mind that Min’s grandmother doesn’t know he’s gay. Thus he decides to convince Angela to marry him.

There’s a warm, cozy ‘90s feel to The Wedding Banquet, and that’s because Lee’s original film is from that era. A story of four friends with romantic issues placed against a high concept premise comes off like a representative of a kinder, simpler era in the landscape of big-budget, CGI-heavy filmmaking. The stakes are high, but not on the level of affecting the state of the free world. However, when you do ensemble stories like this it’s hard to balance everyone’s stories together.

As a group there’s a fantastic interplay between the stars. It’s obvious Lee, Angela, Min and Chris have been each other’s lives for decades. Min and Chris live in Lee and Angela’s guest house, and the group constantly comes into and out of each other’s houses like it’s an episode of Friends. But when cut away into their own individual stories, Lee and Angela’s plotline has a clear advantage. Part of this is because it’s Gladstone and Tran who have such a strong bond. Gladstone’s Lee wears her sexuality on her sleeve, so much so that she knows Min’s grandmother would never see her as straight.

Gladstone doesn’t get enough opportunities to do comedy and she works so well here, never undercutting the humor but giving things a sharp edge. Lee’s desire for children makes sense because she comes off as the Mama Bear to the entire group. Where Lee is strong, Angela is a bit of a waffler. Her mother didn’t talk to her for years after Angela came out. Angela worries she’ll be just as terrible a mom as her own was to her. Angela walks around like an open wound, with Tran constantly showing the pain behind her eyes. Her interactions with her mother, played fabulously by Joan Chen, are relatable if you’ve had a parent who hijacks your problems to make them their own.

Because there’s so much meat on Angela and Lee’s plotline, it makes Chris and Min’s narrative more in service to The Wedding Banquet’s actual plot. The pair certainly have their own issues. Chris maintains that “He [Min] is so good. And I am not good enough,” while Min is a hopeless romantic. But there just isn’t enough to sustain focusing on these two for long, especially not when Gladstone and Tran aren’t around. The pair have chemistry, but it comes off as fleeting. Han is sufficiently sweet, but it’s a fairly one-note performance. Yang has proven he’s great with comedy but he struggles with the more dramatic side of things where he comes off as perpetually irritated.

Joan Chen, as Angela’s mother May, and Youn Yuh-jung as Min’s grandmother steal a fair amount of their own scenes as well. Chen, especially, is a joy to watch. Her flighty need to insert herself into Angela’s narrative expertly skirts the line between obnoxious and endearing.

Editor Geraud Brisson works well in keeping things moving, though the script is more content to focus on the four as a group. It isn’t until about 40 minutes in that things really ramp up and Angela and Min’s wedding takes precedence. Even then the script squishes in a fair amount of topics alongside, not just the established issues of the two couples but Min’s relationship with his grandmother and May and Min’s grandmother paralleling each other. There’s also a third act reveal, stemming from a one-night stand that adds in another plot twist to an already overstuffed narrative.

But for all its flaws The Wedding Banquet works as a strong throwback to the relationship drama/comedies of an earlier era. It also should invigorate audiences to go seek out Ang Lee’s original film. On it’s own merits, Ahn’s interpretation is charming. Gladstone and Tran walk away with the film. In a landscape of BIG event movies, it’s nice to slow down and just enjoy people with a movie like this.

Grade: B-

The Wedding Banquet hits theaters tomorrow, April 18.