- Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran
- May 9th 2025
- 103
- Andrew Ahn
A gay man and his lesbian friend agree to get married so he can get a green card – but chaos ensues with the arrival of his grandmother.
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy now has some stiff competition for romantic comedy of the year thanks to the arrival of The Wedding Banquet.
The remake of Ang Lee’s 1993 film stars Lily Gladstone and Kelly Marie Tran as girlfriends Lee and Angela, who have been unsuccessfully trying for a baby and cannot afford another round of IVF.
There is also Angela’s longtime best friend Chris (Bowen Yang), who lives in a shed-like building on their property, and his rich Korean boyfriend Min (Han Gi-chan).
He proposes to Chris to get a green card to stay in the U.S. but his partner flat-out refuses.
Chaos ensues when Angela agrees to marry Min in exchange for money towards IVF treatment.
They plan to do a simple civil service until Min’s grandmother Ja-Young (Youn Yuh-jung) arrives and insists they carry out the traditional Korean wedding ceremony in full.
Director and co-writer Andrew Ahn has created four well-defined characters that are realistic and nuanced and have interesting solo storylines.
So when you throw them all together it makes for a really compelling – and sometimes messy – friendship dynamic.
The core four cast members have brilliant chemistry and feel like genuine friends. Gladstone and Tran do the heavy lifting in the drama department and Gi-chan and Yang drive home the comedy, with Gi-chan being particularly hilarious.
While they are excellent, the star of the show is actually Oscar-winning actress Yuh-jung, whose character subverts expectations and is surprisingly savvy for her age.
There are some crazy plot developments that wouldn’t feel out of place in a soap opera.
Although the narrative swings are big, the characters respond to them in grounded and realistic ways so they don’t feel overly melodramatic.
Ahn and his co-writer James Schamus also manage to balance the comedy and drama well, producing a film that will have you cracking with laughter one minute and shedding a tear the next.
The Wedding Banquet is a rare rom-com that fully delivers on the romance and comedy in equal measure. It is charming and heartwarming and an utter delight.
In cinemas from Friday 9th May.
By Hannah Wales.
© Cover Media