The fifth and final 2006 Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, Susanne Bier’s After the Wedding, from Denmark, finally arrives in American theaters. It’s a case of too little, too late for this middlebrow, unmemorable film. Fortunately, there’s another reason to see this film: the unique and charismatic star Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale, with his impossibly pointy cheekbones, beady eyes and reptilian lips that look as if they’re about to slide right off his face.
Mikkelsen sinks into the role of Jacob, a man with a mysterious past who runs an orphanage in India. He flies to Denmark to meet with a rich bigwig, Jørgen (Lassgård), and raise money to run his organization. Jørgen invites Jacob to his daughter’s wedding, where Jacob runs into an old flame, now Jørgen’s wife, Helene (Knudsen). He does the math and realizes that he’s the birth father of the young blushing bride, Anna (Christensen)—the daughter he never knew existed.
Jacob and Anna actually take to one another like milk to cereal; the movie’s real drama arises from elsewhere, all having to do with kept secrets. But none of it will be particularly surprising to anyone who’s ever watched a soap opera or a melodrama. And director Bier and her co-writer, Anders Thomas Jensen (both of the Dogme 95 school, i.e. Open Hearts), can’t quite juggle all the parallels. When Anna’s no-good spouse cheats on her (mere days after their nuptials), she turns to her newfound dad for solace, even though she knows that Jacob once cheated on her mom. The movie finds no irony or friction in this potentially wounding duality.
Finally, the movie sets up a hard choice for Jacob, whether he should stay in Denmark or return to India, but the result is more frustrating than it is revealing.
As in her previous features, Bier shoots on hand-held, high-contrast digital video, which results in an ultra-realistic, immediate feel, but which also highlights and underlines the film’s confusion and dramatic side-stepping. Nevertheless, in the middle of all this tentative drama, we have Mikkelsen, lost in each of his individual moods and constantly coming out on top.
After the Wedding
2.5 stars
Mads Mikkelsen,Rolf Lassgård, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Stine Fischer Christensen
Directed by Susanne Bier
Rated R
Opens Friday