Just like Brokeback Mountain, here is another film that simply wouldn’t exist in a world where bigotry didn’t exist. We’d simply say, “oh, it’s a gay film … and?” It is for exactly this reason that I tend to give LBGTQ+ films no special treatment despite emanating from a place of equality – I want to live in a world in which the LBGT part of a film is an afterthought, not the whole damn film. Luckily, the LBGT plot in The Wedding Banquet is a little more advanced than “two closeted homosexuals get together for tea once a year.”
Somewhere in Seattle, sleepless or otherwise, we have entered a land of not one but two *gasp* (2!!) gay couples. The homeowner is Lee (Lily Gladstone); it’s a family home and her family is all gone. Her partner is Angela (Kelly Marie Tran). Angela’s mother (Joan Chen) is an insane social justice warrior … which is better than NOT being an insane SJW, yet still positively eye-rolling. Living in Lee’s garage are Chris (Boyen Yang), an artist, and Min (Han Gi-chan), also an artist, yet heir to a Korean business fortune that has nothing to do with art. Lee’s grandmother (Youn Yuh-jung) wants Min to return to Korea and take over the business … else be cut-off from the family fortune. (Grandpa, unseen, is a big-ass bigot; Min barely has spine enough to deal with grandma.)
Min doesn’t wish to leave Chris and proposes to him. Chris rejects not for lack of love but for lack of good reasons. Chris doesn’t want to get married just so Min can stay in the United States.
Meanwhile, IVF has failed Lee again. The expensive procedure is now cost-prohibitive for Lee and Angela. Hence, over many drinks, Min and Angela come up with a terrible, sit-com-like plan: Min marries Angela. The sham wedding satisfies all the Korean relatives and Min
gives Lee the money to try IVF once again. It’s a win-win-win … except for all stupid parts, that is. If this seems like an idiot plot, it is.
And -personally- I wouldn’t be half as worried about what my folks thought about my sham marriage as much as, say, ICE or Homeland Security, or the NSA … at this point in time, those dudes represent a much greater threat than a bigoted grandpa.
The Wedding Banquet is uneven. The drama is off-and-on; the comedy is off-and-on. It’s hard to dislike Boyen Yang, but why make him play serious so often? That’s not his groove. I think the LBGT tolerant will come away with a middling smile; the intolerant will never show up in the first place. After all that, btw, there wasn’t a wedding banquet in The Wedding Banquet; you may take from that titular irony any lesson you need to.
Two couples living together in Seattle
Make a plan that seems akin to prattle
“We’re serious!” They say
To get their own way
They mold their relationships into a battle
Rated R, 102 Minutes
Director: Andre Ahn
Writer: Andrew Ahn, James Schamus
Genre: A travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: LBGTQ+
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Bigots
