AFTER THE WEDDING
After "I Do", The I Don'ts, I Wills and I
Won'ts
The Popcorn Reel Film Review: "After The Wedding"
By Omar P.L. Moore/April 20, 2007
The movie's poster featuring top center, a smiling Jorgen (played
by Rolf Lassgard), the dancing newly-weds Christian and Anna (Christian Tafdrup
and Stine Fischer Christensen), and, bottom of the poster: a tearful Anna.
(Poster: IFC Films) Companions with a past: Helene (Sidse Babett
Knudsen) and Jacob (Mads Mikkelsen). (Photo: IFC Films)
Have you ever been in two physical places at once? The answer to that one
is easy. Have you ever been in two emotional places at once? The
answer to this one is likely to be a universal "yes". And in Susanne
Bier's intensely intoxicating "After The Wedding" the four main characters are
constantly in two emotional places at once, following a wedding which brings
together people who share secrets and whose secrets create more complicated
matters and generate ironies greater than coincidence ever could be.
Bier is highly adept at chronicling the visual elements of emotion, with extreme
close-ups of hands, eyes and mouths. She chronicles human emotion and the
contradictions of human behavior and situations like few film directors can and
with actors like Mads Mikkelsen (whom audiences will recognize as the
card-playing billionaire villain Le Chiffre from "Casino Royale"), the acclaimed
Rolf Lassgard, and Sidse Babett Knudsen, one cannot go wrong.
The wedding between Anna (Stine Fischer Christensen) and Christian (Christian
Tafdrup) celebrates not only a joyous occasion, but one fraught with tension
that needs little more than a incidental spark to explode. Jacob (Mikkelsen)
has been away in Bombay taking care of orphan kids in an agency strapped for
cash. The Dane is seeking money to keep the fledgling orphanage afloat.
He has been invited to the wedding by Jorgen (Lassgard), a domineering and
manipulative self-made millionaire who is married to Helene (Knudsen) a spouse
who apparently has something to hide. Once these three individuals
converge, volatility, lies, betrayal, secrets and the very definition of
"family" are all taken for a high-speed test drive.
All the performances are first-class, as is the script by Anders Thomas Jensen,
a highly-skilled writer of several screenplays. (He wrote and directed the
2005 film "Adam's Apple", which will be released in several American cities next
month.) The script Mr. Jensen writes for "After The Wedding", this year's
Oscar-nominated film from Denmark for best foreign language film, is based on a
story by Mr. Jensen and director Bier. Susanne Bier, who has directed such
films as "Brothers" and "Open Hearts", will next have her American film
directing debut with "Things We Lost In The Fire", another heart-wrenching
emotional adult drama, which will star Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro.
The film opens in September in the U.S.
Until September though, U.S. audiences can delve deep beneath the surface of
"After The Wedding", a refreshingly mature adult drama for which audiences who
appreciate such fare will be grateful. Ms. Bier's drama is one of the best
films so far this year.
"After The Wedding" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for
some language and a scene of sexuality. The film has been playing various
American cities and today expands in some cities in the Northern California Bay
Area including San Francisco. "After The Wedding" is in Danish and Hindu
spoken language with English subtitles.
Copyright The Popcorn Reel. PopcornReel.com. 2007.
All Rights Reserved.