Directed by Andrew Ahn | Written by Ahn and James Schamus, based on the script by Schamus, Ang Lee, and Neil Peng | 102 min | ▲▲▲ 1/2 | Crave

The original Wedding Banquet was Ang Lee’s second feature, but the first to get a release in North America. Weirdly, it’s pretty much unavailable online in Canada. This is deeply frustrating, as it was with The Amateur last week. There should be some kind of rule when a movie gets remade — or even a new adaptation of the same source — the original should be made available!

It turns out I have seen the original, and it’s a sweet indie relic. Set in New York in 1993, the echoes of AIDS very much still reverberating, it’s the story of a gay Taiwanese-American real estate agent, his partner and their Chinese tenant. They concoct a plan to get the tenant a green card and fool the real estate agent’s parents into thinking he’s straight — a sham marriage. But when the parents show up from Taiwan, they’re offended by the lack of ceremony when the “straight couple” head to city hall and arrange a big meal at a Chinese restaurant to celebrate, the banquet of the title, which causes all kinds of problems. The film deftly manages to be an immigrant tale, an American story, and an observation of mores around gay culture in New York at the time.

Thirty-two years later, the director of Fire Island and the original screenwriter, James Schamus, have come up with a new version that updates the cultural signifiers solidly to the 21st Century and diverges from the original in some surprising and congenial ways while also dipping into soapy melodrama in a style the first movie resisted.

Bowen Yang plays Chris, the non-committal boyfriend of Min (Han Gi-Chan), who loves Chris and wants to get married, but Chris isn’t there yet. They live in the guest house/barn of a house belonging to Lee (Lily Gladstone) and Angela (Kelly Marie Tran), a couple keen to have a baby, but the IVF hasn’t taken hold after two tries.

Cue a whole lot of yelling and weeping — the first act of this picture features characters crying in every second scene. It’s a lot. Despite a slice or two of dry humour and the welcome presence of the terrific Yang, one of the brightest lights on SNL for years, this could’ve been a lot funnier and a lot less… inclement.

Instead we get Angela and Lee’s anxieties (cue crying), Angela’s mother (Joan Chen) overcompensating for past mistakes (cue more crying), and Angela’s overreacting to everything. It’s like the whole cast is on mushrooms and are incapable of talking about their lives without some overweening emotional outburst.

The two couples bring forth a more complex solution to life’s problems this time, which is still a sham marriage. Min comes from a rich Korean family who want him to take over their business, which he’s not interested in doing. He instead figures if he gets a green card he can leave all that behind, but if Chris won’t marry him maybe Angela will. In return he’ll give Angela and Lee a wad of cash so they can have a third go at the IVF.

The movie improves immensely when Min’s intimidating grandmother, Ja-Young (Youn Yuh-jung, Minari) shows up and wants to meet her grandson’s fiancé. We also get the first scene that feels at all indebted to the original movie, when the group of friends de-gay the house in advance of the senior’s arrival.

Ja-Young turns out to be a lot more empathetic than we were led to believe, and unlike the parents in the first version she sees through this wedding scheme in about five minutes. That’s when this film really finds its footing, and for about 15 minutes makes Ja-Young the lead character — she’s the only one who isn’t losing her shit at the slightest provocation. A few other clever changes in the narrative help drive this new film in a whole other direction — it doesn’t even feature the titular feast as a major plot point.

The changes for the new version continue the immigrant themes while updating the class issues and embracing the idea of a found family, bringing an  irreverence to its legacy while somehow also remaining in conversation with the previous iteration. The sense of place — it was shot in Vancouver — gives it a lovely, Pacific Northwest vibe.

The performances are solid all around.  Gladstone delivers genuine movie-star charisma, even as the script could ask more of her. The Wedding Banquet isn’t above a really goofy Star Wars joke for fans of Tran’s previous work, which speaks to a welcome playfulness underneath all the sobbing.