After the Wedding movie review

RATING: PG-13

LENGTH: 1 hour, 50 minutes

Movie Review Mom GRADE: A

IN A NUTSHELL:

After The Wedding is a remake with a gender swap of the 2006 Danish Oscar-nominated film After the Wedding (English Subtitled). Americans don’t generally watch foreign films, which explains this remake, I suppose. Some prefer the original, but I’m fine with a remake since it exposes more people to this interesting story. I haven’t seen the original After the Wedding yet, but now I’d like to.

TIPS FOR PARENTS:

Kids will be very bored.
Pre-marital “relations” that result in a very complicated situation
Some profanity

THEMES:

Philanthropy
Parenthood
Sacrifice
Service
The life we create for ourselves
Consequences
Responsibility
Beginnings and endings

THINGS I LIKED:

I adore Michelle Williams and have enjoyed her performances in all of her movies. She is such an excellent actress and gives a master class in acting in this film. She says so much with her face. I’m hoping for an Oscar nomination for her.
Julianne Moore also did a great job.
You get to visit India a little bit, which is equally as spellbinding as the actresses.
I love how director Bart Freundlich frames his scenes. He is married to Julianne Moore, by the way.
The cinematography is noticeably good by Julio Macat.
The original After the Wedding was filmed in Denmark and directed by Susanne Bier. This remake is set in New York City.
The absurdity of the conversation was profound when Isabel and Theresa first meet. Isabel is trying to explain how many children are dying in India every day while Theresa argues with her assistant about the lobster shortage for the upcoming wedding reception.
Billy Crudup has a nice calming influence.
The irony and symbolism were handled very well.
I loved the musical score and especially the original song that played at the very end of the movie called Know You For A Moment It was perfect for the theme of the movie, which is about how we touch each other’s lives.
The trailer does a great job painting an intriguing story without giving anything away. Well done!
I love how the movie begins and ends the same way.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE:

None of my complaints are about how the movie was made. It was very well done. Things I didn’t like just had to do with certain moments in the story. That’s saying a lot about the quality of the movie!
I thought it was interesting when the daughter (played by Abby Quinn) was annoyed that her parents kept telling her that she looked beautiful on her wedding day. I have a young friend who reacted the same way. She thought it was terrible that everyone told her how lovely she looked, rather than saying things like “You made such a great choice” or “What a smart young woman you are.” She had a point, yet she could have simply said, “Thank you so much” instead of making people feel bad for not complimenting her “correctly.”
There is a moment when Isabel is really mean to a guy who was simply trying to flirt with her. I’m always intrigued by what goes through script writer’s heads when they come up with dialogue. I wouldn’t have ever even thought to react like that. Do they write from personal experience?
Grace yells at her dad, saying, “You had no right to…..” Of course he did. He was her father. He had to make a decision and he did what he thought was best for his daughter. I wish people would cut each other some slack because aren’t we all just trying to do the best we can? Then, she gets mad at her mother for basically the same thing. She acts so morally superior to her parents, which is really annoying. We shouldn’t be so quick to judge or take offense. Her character just really bugged me.

INTERESTING LINES:

“You’ll always be mine. Remember that.” – Theresa (Julianne Moore)
“With your imagination, you can create anything.” – Isabel (Michelle Williams)
“You don’t have to be poor to have good intentions. There are people with money and good principles.” – Oscar (Billy Crudup)
“Is it us moving through the world or the world running past us?” – Oscar

HERE IS THE ORIGINAL MOVIE WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES:

After the Wedding (English Subtitled)