After the Wed­ding – first look review

Even for those who haven’t seen Susanne Bier’s Dan­ish ver­sion of After the Wed­ding from 2006, it doesn’t take long to realise that this is a remake, as noth­ing about it feels par­tic­u­lar­ly new or orig­i­nal. Tread­ing famil­iar dra­mat­ic ground, the film opens in Kolkata, India, where Isabel (Michelle Williams) is work­ing at an under­fund­ed orphan­age. She has devot­ed her­self entire­ly to the chil­dren there, for­go­ing hav­ing her own fam­i­ly in the process.

She is forced to briefly leave India fol­low­ing an offer of a gen­er­ous dona­tion from There­sa (Julianne Moore), a wealthy bene­fac­tor and busi­ness­woman, who demands that Isabel come to New York to explain in per­son why her orga­ni­za­tion deserves the mon­ey. Brash, extra­or­di­nar­i­ly afflu­ent, hap­pi­ly mar­ried and an ambi­tious CEO, There­sa couldn’t be more dif­fer­ent to Isabel – their dynam­ic and the way they push against one anoth­er is one of the few inter­est­ing aspects of the film, due in large part to the per­for­mances of Williams and Moore.

Seem­ing­ly unin­ter­est­ed in actu­al­ly dis­cussing the orphan­age, There­sa prompt­ly invites Isabel to her daughter’s wed­ding that week­end. It’s here that Isabel meets Theresa’s hus­band, Oscar (Bil­ly Crudup), and dis­cov­ers that she is far more con­nect­ed to the fam­i­ly than she could ever have imag­ined. From this point, as the title sug­gests, the action real­ly takes off as secrets are revealed and rela­tion­ships change.

After the Wed­ding is clear­ly a melo­dra­ma, but writer/​director Bart Fre­undlich appears reluc­tant to ful­ly embrace the genre. The result is an awk­ward soap opera piece with an incon­sis­tent tone. At times the film swells with intense music and sen­ti­men­tal dia­logue, yet too often it shies away from any­thing that might be deemed chal­leng­ing or upset­ting; dra­mat­ic moments jar­ring­ly inter­rupt­ed by cheesy attempts at leivity.

Although the actors can’t quite save the film from medi­oc­rity, they do at least ele­vate pro­ceed­ings. If there is one rea­son to see this film it is sure­ly the cen­tral trio of Williams, Moore and Crudup – Moore is par­tic­u­lar­ly good, always ful­ly com­mit­ted to her role no mat­ter how sketchi­ly writ­ten her char­ac­ter is. As ill-advised as some of the comedic moments are, she tack­les them read­i­ly and makes them work. She’s also respon­si­ble for deliv­er­ing the film’s most affect­ing moments – her last lines, deliv­ered through sobs, are heart-wrench­ing. For a film punc­tu­at­ed with emo­tion, how­ev­er, After the Wed­ding sad­ly doesn’t pro­voke much with­in the viewer.