The Wedding Banquet (c) Luke Cyprian, Bleecker Street
Film: The Wedding Banquet
In Cinemas
I have always loved Ang Lee’s 1993 queer landmark film, The Wedding Banquet, which both announced the Taiwanese director’s talents (it was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar) and foreshadowed his highly acclaimed 2005’s Brokeback Mountain, the gay cowboy love story that won Lee his first Best Director Oscar. Now director Andrew Ahn has directed a reimagining of the film by the first film’s co-screenwriter James Schamus, and while it certainly feels updated, its adherence to the original plot points give it a nice symmetry (although the drunk night plot felt as dated today as it did in the 90s). In this version (now in Seattle), there are two gay couples: scientist Angela (Kelly Marie Tran, in her first major leading film role) and her social worker Lee (a down-to-Earth Lily Gladstone), and birdwatching tour guide Chris (Bowen Yang) and artist Min (Han Gi-Chan). It is Min, who’s the heir of a Korean corporate company, run by his grandmother Ja-Young (Minari Oscar winner Youn Yuh-jung), but in order to stay in the country he needs to get married. Since he’s not out to his family (his grandfather would disown him), Min hatches a plan with Angela for her to marry him, and in return, he would pay for Lee’s expensive IVF treatments. But when Ja-Young makes a surprise visit, she demands a wedding and, of course, the wedding banquet. Ahn has always been a subtle, human-interaction type of director, even in his biggest hit, the gay comedy Fire Island, and it’s true for The Wedding Banquet as well. As much as the trailer makes it to be a raucous farce (the de-queering the house scene is a bit manic), Ahn gives each of the storylines a dignity and a grace, especially with scenes by the elder cast members. Joan Chen is fun as Angela’s proud PFLAG mother, and Youn Yuh-jung is just plain exquisite as the grandmother, stealing every scene, mostly by sitting still. It's no coincidence that the word for “grandmother” in Korean sounds like the English word “harmony.” But then again, the word for “father” in Korean also sounds like the British word for eggplant. Not sure about the symbolism there.
The Ballad of Wallis Island (c) Focus Features
Film: The Ballad of Wallis Island
In Cinemas
Folk singer Herb McGwyer (Tom Basden) is playing a small concert on an island off the British coast so small there isn’t even a dock. He has to jump off his tiny boat and wade through the last few meters of the ocean onto the Wallis Island beach, where he’s greeted by Charles (Tim Key), an amiable but socially awkward man, who seems to be stuck in the past, mainly for the folk duo of McGwyer-Mortimer. Herb (being the McGwyer) has since had a moderately successful solo career, but in order to fund his next album, he agreed to perform the concert. However, he did not agree to the rustic and analog accommodations or the somewhat creepy vibe Charles seems to give off (at certain moments, I thought Ballad might turn into a Cuckoo-type horror film). But to McGwyer’s surprise, Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan) shows up the next day with her husband. Herb has to decide if he can perform the old songs as duets again, with all the emotional baggage that entails, or bail on the concert altogether. Director James Griffiths gives the film a nostalgic sheen as if Wallis Island itself is a century behind the rest of the world, and Tim Key turns out to be key to why it works so well. His open-hearted demeanor that was somewhat upsetting at the start becomes heartwarming and charming by the end. Key wrote the screenplay with Basden, based on their short film The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island and both their characters feel lived-in and nuanced. Not to be left out, Mulligan turns out to be the voice of reason and empathy as Nell has moved on with her life after the duo broke up, but may also have a hidden motive as to why she said yes to the concert. The Ballad of Wallis Island is the most a film has ever felt like a cozy wool sweater on a drizzly autumn afternoon.
A Nice Indian Boy (c) Wayfarer Studios
Film: A Nice Indian Boy
In Cinemas
Roshan Sethi’s new film, A Nice Indian Boy, starts with the wedding of Arundhathi Gavaskar (Sunita Mani) to Manish (Sachin Sahel), who is, indeed, a nice Indian boy (and a doctor no less), with her parents, Megha (Zarna Garg) and Archit (Harish Patel), beaming. Then all the wedding guests’ eyes metaphorically turn to Naveen (Karan Soni), also a doctor, to know when he would get married. As an out gay man (which his parents nervously accept), he doesn’t think he will ever have a lavish wedding. At his Hindu temple, he even prays to the deity Ganesha for a miracle, and before you can say “meet cute,” enter Jonathan Groff as Jay. Their courtship starts off tentatively, but at their first date (watching the popular Bollywood romance Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge), Jay, a photographer, explains that he’s an orphan who was raised by Indian-American parents. This neat little twist turns the culture shock cliches from these kinds of romcoms like My Big Fat Greek Wedding on its head. When Naveen finally decides to introduce the guy he met at temple to his family, his parents are taken aback when Jay shows up. Madhuri Shekar co-adapts his play for the big screen, and while it doesn’t reinvent the romantic comedy wheel, the Indian milieu makes for some fun variety. Soni is appropriately self-sabotaging as Naveen and (recent Tony Winner) Groff as Jay is charming, but he’s almost too good to be true. The biggest surprise has to be stand-up comedian Garg as Naveen’s mother, who’s both hilarious (her explanation of the plot of Milk is priceless) and sympathetic as a woman who herself had an arranged marriage and is trying to make sense of the modern world. This is a sweet and enjoyable comfort food of a film.
Sacramento (c) Vertical
Film: Sacramento
In Cinemas
Is it too soon to see a film that is so eerily an alternate universe version of A Real Pain (albeit without the whole Holocaust thing)? Sacramento is a road trip film written and directed by Michael Angarano, and like Jesse Eisenberg who wrote and directed A Real Pain, Angarano also stars in the film. He plays Rickey, who convinces his oldest childhood friend Glenn (Michael Cera), to drive him to the film’s titular city, which is a six-hour drive from LA, to scatter his recently deceased father’s ashes. Glenn is a neurotic mess, and this request comes at the worst possible time as his wife, Rosie (Kristen Stewart, the film’s voice of reason), is heading into the third trimester of her first pregnancy, and he is dreading that he might be downsized by his company. But as much as he vowed to himself to cut the reckless Rickey from his life, he agrees to the trip in honor of Rickey’s father. Rickey, who has had a slight mental breakdown since the loss of his father, does seem to have an ulterior motive, including reconnecting with Glenn and restarting their friendship. The drive produces many scenarios that test their already tenuous friendship, with both men having some fatherhood issues at the root of their neurosis. Angarano, who is still best remembered for playing the younger William Miller in Almost Famous, has written a quirky and offbeat film that sometimes goes into questionable territory (there is a felony crime that is somehow glossed over) but mainly it’s an enjoyable study of male friendship. However, it’s the women of the film that get the best moments. Along with Kristen Stewart, there are AJ Mendez and Iman Karram, as two women the guys meet at the bar, as well as the wonderful Maya Erskine (Angarano’s real-life wife) as a backpacker that Glenn meets at the start of the film. While not as resonant as A Real Pain, both films smartly examine how young men sometimes bungle their way on the road to responsibility and adulthood.
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