RATING
Director(s): Andrew Ahn
Country: United States
Author: Andrew Ahn, James Schamus
Actor(s): Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran
Written by Tom Augustine
Over the course of four films, Andrew Ahn has emerged as one of the most quietly consistent directors of modern American indies in the game — his unassuming and proudly inclusive style modern and refreshing, yet cinematic in the way filmmakers like James L Brooks proved to be with their small-scale dramedies in years past. My favourite of these is the gorgeous, lilting Driveways, a determinedly minor-key suburban story that featured the final performance of the great Brian Dennehy, in a role he should have won awards for. Ahn’s consistency is key to his emerging quality as a filmmaker — his Fire Island shared the same warmth and humour, blitzing past preconceptions that may come with such a title and locale for something humanistic, complex and deeply enjoyable. Ahn also found with Fire Island a strong collaborator in Saturday Night Live’s current It-Boy Bowen Yang, demonstrating range and ability that could only be hinted at within the sharp confines of a weekly sketch-comedy show. Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet — a lesser-known Lee, perhaps, but one no-less potent than his other work — is an ideal remake for Ahn to tackle through an Asian-American lens. Lee frequently makes films that seem boundary-pushing for their time, or built for audiences ten years in the future (Brokeback Mountain, of course, but consider also Hulk, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Gemini Man, Lust Caution); Ahn’s films are less challenging, but find poetry in investigating how we live right now, something many auteurs seem allergic to considering.
The setup for The Wedding Banquet is classic rom-com bliss — the delight of this gentle update is in how such contrivances might be overturned or subverted by Ahn’s steady hand. He’s united one hell of a cast — Yang is back as Chris, one of four queer friends living on the same property. His partner is Min (Han Gi-chan), a Korean student and heir to a large business empire, whose visa is about to expire. Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) is Chris’ oldest friend and one-time (pre-coming out) lover. She’s in a relationship with Lee (Lily Gladstone), who is undergoing IVF treatment. At the beginning of the film, her second, costly attempt has failed, and the couple have no money to try again, having already mortgaged their precious family home. Chris and Angela, each coming from troubled backgrounds, are stuck in a kind of arrested development — both have a deep fear of commitment and their worlds changing. For Chris, change comes in the form of Min’s desire to get married — not simply for love, but in order to keep their relationship alive in America through a new visa. For Angela, the fear comes from worrying she may not be a fit mother, drawing on a strained relationship with her own mother May Chen (Joan Chen), who is trying to overcome an initial lack of acceptance for Angela’s orientation by becoming the ultimate, visible queer ally. Min has the initial spark of a crazy idea — marrying Angela, in order for himself to stay and to use funds from the business to allow Lee to go through another round of IVF. What initially seems like it’ll be a smooth, quick operation is undercut by the arrival of Min’s grandmother Ja-Young (Youn Yuh-jung), who has deep suspicions about the union of Angela and Min.
Warm and open-hearted, Andrew Ahn’s update of the Ang Lee classic refreshes its themes and central narrative for a modern LGBTQIA+ landscape. Funny and frequently moving, it is a film boosted by the lived-in performances from a committed ensemble cast of rising stars and award-winning character actors.
It’s an ensemble of exceedingly accomplished talent, uniting Oscar winners and should-have-been winners like Youn Yuh-jung and Gladstone; cult icons like Twin Peaks’ Chen; and largely untested performers eager to flex their dramatic muscle. The last is especially true of Tran, the unfortunate brunt-bearer of The Last Jedi’s ludicrous hate campaign who has largely avoided the spotlight since. It’s a shame, as Tran is the emotional core of The Wedding Banquet and handles the pressure with utmost grace and emotionality. Gladstone, one of the greatest working actresses, elevates her material through sheer magnetism. A late-breaking scene between the two communicates enormous volumes through facial expressions alone, resolving a major dramatic conflict without a single utterance — such is Gladstone’s ability. Against these two fantastic performers, Yang and Han fade somewhat into the background. Han is clearly the most out-of-his-depth in the foursome, not quite up to the dramatic challenge placed on his shoulders, while Yang’s saddled with the least original and interesting character. In general, though, the shared chemistry of the group is such that foibles are easily ignored. The more senior presences of Chen and particularly Youn are notable as well: since Minari, Youn Yuh-jung hasn’t seemingly had much to do (her work in Pachinko aside). The Wedding Banquet is a reminder of her remarkable capabilities. Arriving into the story far later than the rest of the cast, her presence is so gravitational that the film itself pivots around her, briefly reassigning the narrative toward her perspective.
Along the way, the frothy, caper-style plotting of the fake wedding itself becomes almost incidental. After a lengthy period of table-setting, the execution of the wedding, which grows from a quiet City Hall occurrence to a full-blown traditional Korean ceremony, arrives and ends in surprisingly brief fashion. It’s an indicator of Ahn’s interests — the interpersonal drama far outweighs the gently comedic beats of the grand fiction the friends create. This is most hilariously pinpointed in the first Stateside scene with Ja-Young, in which she immediately identifies the fakery afoot, altering our expectations of what is to come significantly. It’s this constant subversion of expectations that makes The Wedding Banquet such a pleasure — in its own lowkey way, the film continuously re-emphasises the perspectives of the characters as the most vital element to the story, along the way underlining the fact that this is a queer story through and through. It means that the second and third act wedding shenanigans feel somewhat rushed and bunched together, true, but the payoff comes soon after with the culmination of the emotional arcs within. It’s a continuation of the joyously small-scale work that Ahn is quickly coming to define in the American indie scene, the kind of work that rewards seeking — it’s not work that crows about its own importance from the rooftops, but watching one finds you walking away with a deep appreciation for the small but ever-so-important lives of the everyday people around you. Roger Ebert said that films are ‘empathy machines’: the work of Andrew Ahn is an evocation of that ideal.
The Wedding Banquet is in cinemas now.