SPOILERS are ahead for The Wedding Banquet, now playing in theaters.
The Wedding Banquet is one of those new LGBTQ+ movies I'm just so happy exists because of how it depicts queer people. While there’s been a huge chunk of movies by, for and about the LGBTQ+ community discussing the problems and pain facing them, Andrew Ahn’s remake to the 1993 movie from Ang Lee takes a more complex approach than we’re used to seeing on the big screen.
Its characters are absolutely going through it, but it’s dealt with in such a beautifully human way that also leaves room for their joy and happiness (and laughs from the audience). So when CinemaBlend spoke to the cast, we had to discuss the movie’s finale with them.
Lily Gladstone Reacts To The Wedding Banquet's Adorable Ending
After the basic premise of The Wedding Banquet has one couple (Gladstone’s Lee and Kelly Marie Tran’s Angela) dealing with the expenses that come with doing IVF, their prayers are weirdly answered when their friend Min (Han Gi-Chan) needs to have a green card marriage in order to stay in America. Angela agrees to marry him while Min’s boyfriend Chris (Bowen Yang) contemplates why he’s not ready to say “I do” to him.
In a hilarious turn of events, Angela actually becomes pregnant with Chris’ baby during a drunken night out, all the while Lee’s IVF procedure is successful. Oh, and Chris crashes Min and Angela’s legal wedding to marry him instead (after having a traditional ceremony where a Star Wars joke totally made its way in). When we spoke to Gladstone, Tran and Han, the Oscar nominee said this about her thoughts on the end:
[When watching the end with an audience] there is this cascade of ‘Oh, oh, ahhhh!!!’ That’s my favorite. And, it's just celebratory. And whether you figured it out, whether you're surprised by the ending, it's delightful. And the way that it was shot and it's like thought out, 'cause it was the inverse initially. It's like you could see the reflection of the crib, but the baby was getting grabbed from one that's off camera first. So just like switching that to help suspend the disbelief a little longer.
The Wedding Banquet premiered at Sundance to rave reactions earlier this year (and we also loved it in our The Wedding Banquet review) before it became one of the latest of 2025 movies to hit theaters. Gladstone shared she especially loves the “cascade of surprise” that happens when it's revealed that Angela and Lee have had both babies and they are raising them with Min and Chris. As Gladstone continued:
And then just having this big chosen family have this awesome group hug where these two babies are going to grow up as siblings. It's a lovely little embracing radical moment of decolonial love.
It’s actually the perfect ending for it considering the whole movie is about embracing found family and imperfection. While Lee is initially heartbroken by Angela cheating on her with their common friend, she finds understanding in her heart for the mistake, and they get to have a unique community around not one, but their two kids. It’s the sweetest ending.
The Sweet Reason Why Lily Gladstone Wants A Sequel To The Wedding Banquet
As I told the cast, I would absolutely love to see the four queer characters of The Wedding Banquet go through some hijinks together while raising their kids in a sequel. Gladstone shared that she was also interested in that for one particular reason. In her words:
I am [rooting for a sequel] too, actually. I would wanna see both of those babies in their naming ceremony in a Duwamish longhouse 'cause both of those babies would be given a Duwamish name.
The Duwamish is an indigenous tribe who live in Washington, where the movie is set. Ahead of filming, Lily Gladstone asked if her character could specifically be Duwamish to reflect the land they were depicting. While this movie doesn’t delve deep into the character’s indigenous roots, she points out that a sequel could, especially when it comes to the raising of their kids and wanting to reflect some of her cultural traditions.
Gladstone is definitely continuing to bring great characters from indigenous communities to the movies she is part of, and The Wedding Banquet was made up of tons of queer castmates and crew members, too. We need more movies about LGBTQ+ people like this, especially when it comes to an ending as sweet as this one.
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