It is common data that our society has such a protracted method to go earlier than really, totally normalizing and accepting folks of coloration and queer artists and narratives within the mainstream. But regardless of the persevering with wrestle, it is necessary to acknowledge simply how far minorities in cinema have come, and the way enduring these movies proceed to be. As proof, filmmaker Andrew Ahn’s remake of “The Marriage ceremony Banquet” simply premiered on the Sundance Movie Pageant, and the film marks a milestone of types in POC and queer cinema. As Ahn informed the premiere screening’s viewers, he first noticed the 1993 Ang Lee model of “The Marriage ceremony Banquet” as a baby because of his mom renting it one night time throughout a visit to the video retailer, telling her son that she needed to see the film about Asian-Individuals that every one the white folks had been watching.
As Ahn confessed, viewing that movie at a younger age was a formative expertise, because it helped him begin to outline his personal sexuality in an period when it was solely simply changing into permissive to be publicly out of the closet. Now, 32 years after the unique movie, Ahn has teamed up with one of many co-writers of Lee’s movie, James Schamus (whom Ahn labored with as a producer on his 2019 breakout movie, “Driveways”), so as to replace “The Marriage ceremony Banquet” for an period that is way more permissive than the ’90s had been in some methods. Whereas the methods by which the 2020s are nonetheless rooted in antiquated custom and prejudice makes up a part of the movie’s plot, its exuberance and matter-of-fact method to queerness and sexuality permits this model of “The Marriage ceremony Banquet” to be a delightfully novel expertise all its personal.
The Marriage ceremony Banquet is a good comedy
The unique “The Marriage ceremony Banquet” is a comedy of errors, involving a bisexual Taiwanese man who makes a deal to marry a Chinese language lady so as to get her a inexperienced card and appease his conventional mother and father, solely to find that his mother and father are coming to the USA for his or her sham marriage ceremony, which suggests he has to lie about his gay relationship. As Ahn noticed in his introduction to the movie, authorized same-sex relationships and marriages have been a actuality for many years now (and let’s hope they keep that method), in order that could not be the one hurdle the characters would face in his model of the movie.
As such, this “Marriage ceremony Banquet” introduces us to Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) and Lee (Lily Gladstone), a loving lesbian couple dwelling in Seattle, who’re determined to have a baby through the costly IVF process. Their homosexual male associates who reside of their visitor home, Chris (Bowen Yang) and Min (Han Gi-chan), are present process a rocky patch of their relationship, with Chris refusing to decide to Min based mostly on figuring out that Min’s rich, conventional Korean household would disown him in the event that they had been to marry. Upon studying that Lee’s final IVF therapy did not take and that the couple do not have the funds for to pay for an additional strive, Min hatches the plan to marry Angela, based mostly on the truth that her day job may enable her to move as a straight lady within the eyes of his grandmother (Youn Yuh-jung) lengthy sufficient for a sham marriage ceremony to happen and Min to provide Angela and Lee cash for a brand new process.
After all, issues get sophisticated virtually instantly: Min’s grandmother insists on coming to Seattle to stick with Min and Angela, Angela vocalizes her uncertainty about changing into a mom because of her rocky relationship together with her personal mom, Might (Joan Chen), and Chris is torn between his love for Min and his sense of accountability. The farcical icing on the marriage cake comes when Chris and Angela, who had been briefly an merchandise in faculty earlier than they recognized their sexuality, sleep collectively as the results of a drunken crashout.
Occasions solely get extra comically tangled from there, and what “The Marriage ceremony Banquet” proves greater than something is how a lot of a knack Ahn has at establishing and paying off situational comedy. It is a trick simpler stated than completed, as evidenced by the quite a few romantic comedies which pile on contrivance after inanity and anticipate to be rewarded with relatable laughter for it. Ahn, Schamus, and the ensemble solid all have the innate understanding that tales like this must really feel actual even whereas presenting a collection of unbelievable circumstances, and “The Marriage ceremony Banquet” pulls off that trick with panache.
Ahn and Schamus do not fairly mesh the indie spirit with the business goals effectively
Whereas “The Marriage ceremony Banquet” is at its greatest when leaning into its rom-com spirit, it falters when Ahn chooses to sluggish issues right down to attempt to inject some indie dramedy into the proceedings. That is most likely because of the truth that Ahn and Schamus try to stability the heightened, farcical nature of their story with dialogue that’s method too on-the-nose to ever sound naturalistic. The actors are requested to ship some actually clunky traces, stating their issues, complaints, and wishes in a style that would by no means sound life like irrespective of who was saying them. It is the type of dialogue that may match snugly right into a ’80s or ’90s TV sitcom, however stands out like a sore thumb right here.
In the end, this seems like a crossed-wires scenario on the subject of goals and tone. “The Marriage ceremony Banquet” is, at its core, gentle leisure, and there is nothing trivial or slight about that. But it is comprehensible why Ahn would possibly really feel the strain to attempt to give the movie extra weight than it may well deal with, and it solely half works. In terms of moments shared between Chen and Yuh-jung, the historical past and knowledge these ladies innately have lends their scenes an additional poignancy. Against this, the verbosity of the younger {couples} feels misplaced; it is exhausting to reconcile their too-perfect speeches one minute with their messy social fumbling the following.
The Marriage ceremony Banquet continues the rom-com resurgence
Fortuitously, the ensemble solid are so profitable (each individually and collectively) that any of those points turn out to be mere bumps within the street on an in any other case pleasant path. A part of the enjoyment of the movie lies in the way in which that Ahn has structured every character to work in a number of pairings, and it is a stroke of fine casting that each final actor greater than lives as much as the script’s necessities. It is such a pleasure to see these performers bounce off each other, and collectively they create the discovered household dynamic that Ahn is striving for with the movie. When “The Marriage ceremony Banquet” is leaning into its rom-com roots, it sings in a method that the majority trendy rom-coms have not for a very good lengthy whereas.
That is why this movie, much more than current hits “Anybody However You” and “Loopy Wealthy Asians” (the latter of which this film is certain to be lazily in comparison with), seems like one of the best instance of a resurgence of the romantic comedy. I am certain that there have been different robust showings on streaming providers currently, however there’s one thing so particular about having a collective expertise with a movie like this, and hopefully it may result in additional movies prefer it not solely being made however being launched theatrically. “The Marriage ceremony Banquet” could be the feel-good film of the 12 months, however that is to not name it a frivolity. It is a movie that, as soon as once more, demonstrates how all of us, irrespective of from what background, can relate to one another, and within the period we’re presently struggling by way of, that is a message we may all use extra of.
/Movie Ranking: 8 out of 10
“The Marriage ceremony Banquet” premiered on the 2025 Sundance Movie Pageant. It opens in theaters on April 18, 2025.
