The Wedding Banquet

Wai-Tung, a Taiwanese landlord in Manhattan, lives with his American partner Simon but keeps the relationship hidden from his parents in Taipei. To end their matchmaking, he agrees to a paper marriage with Wei-Wei, a tenant who needs a green card. When his mother and father arrive for the wedding, a quiet city-hall plan swells into a lavish traditional banquet, and the careful fiction strains under everyone's competing wishes.

Ang Lee made the film early in his career, and critics received it as a deft domestic comedy with real feeling underneath. Writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert admired how the filmmakers respect their characters rather than reaching for easy laughs. The comedy turns on filial duty: each lie told to protect the parents draws more people into the son's performance.

For a psychodynamic clinician, the film studies concealment from parents and the weight of filial expectation. Wai-Tung holds a self divided between cultures, between family loyalty and his own desire, and the banquet shows what it costs to keep those worlds apart. The parents' partial knowing may prompt reflection on secrecy, shame, and belonging.