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‘The Wedding Banquet’ Review: Modern Reimagining of Queer Classic Mostly Finds Its Own Way With Funny New Guests
Andrew Ahn’s thoroughly enjoyable dramedy based on Ang Lee’s 1993 original tests the relationships of two LGBT couples through a sham marriage ploy.
When Ang Lee’s “ The Wedding Banquet ” was released back in 1993, the AIDS epidemic was still taking lives, marriage equality in the U.S. was decades away and queer representation in media remained limited, even if strides had been made. After a second unsuccessful IVF treatment, Seattle lesbian couple Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) and her partner Lee (Lily Gladstone), who would have carried the pregnancy, hit a wall as to how to proceed with their relationship. The extraordinary Joan Chen plays Angela’s mother, who overcompensates for her initial rejection of her daughter’s sexual orientation by becoming a staunch ally, while Youn is a woman caught between her genuine desire to embrace her grandson and the disapproval of her husband (a union arranged by her parents).
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