The "Chosen Family" Plot
"The Wedding Banquet" and new happy endings
So much of life feels at an inflection point right now. Numerous decisions, with interconnected variables, joined to one another by pulleys, strings, levers and ramps, all operating within the giant Rube Goldberg device that is modern American capitalism.
Do we have another baby? Do we have the coins? How urgently can we decide, given the march of time and fertility? When do we have to pause our Grindr/Hinge/Feeld accounts again?
Where and how might we manage to live with or near more of our friends? We want a proximity that leads to daily interaction, not requiring coordination and preplanning – autonomous but interdependent. How can we possibly support this lifestyle, and is it possible at all in NYC?
Do we double down on growing our arts consultancy portfolio? The contractions in the financial market are sure to envelop the creative sector soon enough, especially for freelancers; like a telltale gas leak, it’s not hard to detect the whiff of 2008 in the air.
If not, under what conditions might one or both of us tolerate or embrace returning to a 9-to-5 job? What happens then to the timeline for the book we are writing? Our creative lives?
And most of all, when faced with the hydra of JOB/HOME/FRIEND/BABY-related choices, which comes first: A new job? A new home? A new city [gulp]? A new baby?
Faced with life’s most consequential decisions, we did what anyone would do, which is to stick our fists into a jumbo bucket of popcorn, and an exploratory bag of Nerd gummy-clusters [verdict: unsettlingly delicious!], against the backdrop of a matinee.
“The Wedding Banquet” is a remake of a seminal early-90’s Asian-American and queer film. The new version twists itself in knots to create a new central plot that’s compatible with a modern sensibility where gay marriage is fully possible; the new endgame of the film is no longer a classic rom-com Marriage Plot, but a new trope: the chosen family plot.
Let’s just get this out of the way: it was highly imperfect. A drama wishing to be a comedy, or maybe it was a 3 little comedies stacked inside a drama trench coat. The plot contrivances are impossibly thin. Once you open the door to questions that begin with “Why wouldn’t they just…?”, the whole thing falls apart like a drag queen’s Chinese Dragon tearaway suit. And if you don’t see what is coming at the end from several miles away, I will assume you’ve never seen a motion picture before. (Welcome to Earth!)
More than once, though, we found ourselves thinking, why is my face wet? Am I…crying? Is someone chopping up Nerd clusters in this theatre? Notably, none of these tear-jerking moments involved the romantic partners as scene partners. Instead, the emotional culmination involved the beauty of stitching together a chosen family with care and devotion.
Even as we caught ourselves thinking that these characters perhaps went about it the easier (or at least more well-trod) way – conventional romantic partnership first, blended family second – there was much to recognize, to appreciate, and even to venerate. It was a “representation matters” moment, but less about being gay, or even being Asian.
In watching these characters inhabit their place (specifically, a very appealingly-shot Seattle), their home, with their people, there was some twinge of understanding; an inching towards clarity. It becomes less about what we want to do in the future. It becomes more about how we want the future to feel.
The future is a house, with weathered wood paneling and solid, slightly ding’ed up furniture. A home with cozy corners, space for a crowd, plus an ADU or two.
The future is a place to pursue our respective dreams, and room to grow into our respective friends, lovers, and husbands. A place in the middle of everything.
I want to feel like Kelly Marie Tran’s character in the final moments of this film, looking at the queer jumble of her life. A very gay “bless this mess.”
So: which comes first? The answer, for us, for right now, seems to be taking shape. First comes place, then comes space1, with the friends, the family, the lovers to fill it. And then, like faithful dogs, follow the jobs that keep it all afloat.
This week’s playlist: we broadcast live 6pm Sunday on Electromagnetic Radio, now available on an app!
Eagerly awaiting this Harvard Law guide, to be released in late April (any day now!), on non-traditional home-ownership, a sign that we are very much not alone in these desires: https://www.boston.com/real-estate/spring-house-hunt/2025/04/11/non-traditional-homeownership-solutions-gaining-popularity/
Thanks for the recap-I was n the fence about the remake.
Good luck with the hard decisions. I tend to follow the “see what opens” (and what closes) approach, which admittedly is more difficult the more people involved.
that's for sharing the real-life "mess" of intertwined lives and decisionmaking. Taking a bet on leaving new york for an easier, less expensive life was the right choice for my husband and i, even when people thought we were dooming our careers (it was 2018) Moving to a place with a slower pace, with less financial pressure has helped w making friends, and our community building efforts a lot. Good luck and I want to see this movie!