The two friend groups have wildly different cadences and ideas of fun, so when they begin spending time together, it feels like two galaxies colliding on their way to pandemonium. The book’s “She isn't handsome enough to tempt me,” which Darcy says about Elizabeth, is even translated and modernized to Will’s exponentially more catty “He isn’t hot enough to be that annoying,” which Noah happens to overhear, kicking off a riveting tension between them. The film’s characters map more or less perfectly onto those of the book, especially Noah as a more snappy and combative Elizabeth Bennet, and Will as an equally biting Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Noah is determined to keep his plans for Howie on track, despite the best efforts of Charlie’s protective best friend Will (Conrad Ricamora), a stern, silent lawyer who immediately rubs Noah the wrong way - and vice versa.
Noah wants nothing more than for the soft-spoken Howie - his closest confidante - to get laid, but Howie is more of a walks-on-the-beach romantic type, so he immediately gets sucked into the orbit of kindly rich kid Charlie (James Scully) and his more snobbish pals. As it turns out, Erin’s financial situation has taken a turn, which means the house may not be hers for very long - which also means that this could be the last time the friend group gathers for this particular escape, so they try to make the most of it. Poor, gay, and wanting nothing less than monogamy, he meets up with his excitable best friends, Howie (Bowen Yang), Keegan (Tomas Matos), Luke (Matt Rogers), and Max (Torian Miller) for their annual trip to Fire Island, the famous gay shoreside getaway a few hours from NYC, where their older, attention-starved lesbian friend Erin (Margaret Cho) has a beach house waiting for them as always. It begins with Austen’s famous opening to Pride - “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife” - as narrated by sarcastic protagonist Noah (Joel Kim Booster, the film's screenwriter), who immediately rejects this premise. Despite its premise differing wildly from that classic novel, it goes above and beyond as a modern retelling, resulting in not only one of the funniest, most complete pieces of entertainment this year, but one of the best Jane Austen movies in a generation. His latest, the Searchlight-produced Fire Island, also features prominent gay Asian characters, but is an enormous swing in the opposite direction: it’s a riotous studio comedy about a group of boisterous gay men on a week-long vacation, and it also happens to be an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Its indie follow-up, Driveways, told a gentle story of loss and regret, and featured a young gay boy. His debut feature, Spa Night, was a harrowing indie about a closeted Korean American teen, and the shattered dreams of his immigrant parents. Filmmaker Andrew Ahn is one of America’s underrated gems.