Monday new releases: 12 May 2025

The Wedding Banquet, Lies We Tell and Forgive Us All are in cinemas.

The trailer for The Wedding Banquet, Andrew Ahn’s remake of Ang Lee’s beloved 1993 romantic comedy, foregrounds the biggest name in the film, Saturday Night Live comedian Bowen Yang, and plays up the wackier moments in order to make it seem like an uproarious queer comic romp.

Regular cinema goers may not be surprised to learn that it is not reflective of the actual film, but it is rare to have the tone so misrepresented as this one is. There are jokes, to be sure, and there are some cringe-comedy moments and humorous situational misunderstandings, but the film is actually pretty grounded in authentic human relationships and sincere emotions. It’s actually pretty moving.

Yang plays Chris, a gay man in Seattle, with problems making commitments. He lives in a (nicely appointed to be fair) garage belonging to his lesbian friends, Lee (Lily Gladstone) and Angela (Kelly Marie Tran), he has dropped out of grad school and makes a living conducting birdwatching tours. His partner Min (Han Gi-chan) is a trust fund kid making his way as an artist but his grandparents back in Korea are unaware of his art or his sexuality.

Min’s student visa is expiring and the family want him to return home to take up an executive role in the company. Meanwhile, Lee and Angela are trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant via IVF.

In order to stay in the United States, Min hatches the matchless plan of a marriage of convenience with Angela. In exchange, he will pay for the next round of fertility treatment for Lee. There are only two (possibly even more) problems with this scheme – Chris’s fear of commitment and the possibility that Grandma Ja-Young (Oscar-winner Youn Yuh-jung) might arrive unexpectedly and discover the ruse.

Which is, of course, what happens.

As you might expect with a film that is anchored by the star of Killers of the Flower Moon, the majority of it is underplayed which allows the farce – when it appears – to burst into life and then retreat back to normality. There’s a very funny meta moment in the “de-gaying of the house” montage, in hurried anticipation of Grandma’s arrival, where Gladstone removes all the LGBTQ-themed DVDs from the shelf including a film that she appeared in.

Co-written by Ahn with James Schamus (the co-screenwriter of the original film), this Wedding Banquet brings the story into squarely into the present day and does a fine job of representing all the diversity – of thought, of attitude, of politics – that exists in the Queer community. Watching it today feels like a political gesture in its own right as almost everyone in this film is at risk of a one-way trip to an El Salvadoran prison in the current environment.

I reviewed the Irish gothic drama, Lies We Tell, for last year’s British and Irish Film Festival and, I’m sorry to say, I was not impressed: