After the Wedding

(Dir. Susanne Bier, 2006)

There is a thin line between drama and melodrama, and neither is inherently good or bad. I thought Crash was over-hyped, manipulative and preachy, but The O.C. never failed to tug at my heartstrings during its brief, glorious tenure—and both can certainly be considered melodramatic. On the surface, Susanne Bier’s After the Wedding deals with topics that can readily be found on any number of daytime soaps: family, fidelity, personal responsibility. Where As The World Turns and General Hospital’s stock in trade is risen-from-the-dead fiancées and slow-zoom glowers, however, After the Wedding deals in genuinely interesting characters and fully realized emotions.

The film begins in an orphanage in India, where Danish Jacob (Mads Mikkelsen) lives a happy life caring for a handful of children. The orphanage is in desperate need of financing, and Jacob reluctantly agrees to return to his birthplace of Denmark to meet with Jorgen, a possible financier. Meanwhile in Denmark, Jorgen (Rolf Lassgard), a self-made billionaire, prepares for his daughter’s upcoming wedding with his loving wife Helene (Sidse Babett Knudsen). After meeting with and taking a liking to Jacob, Jorgen invites him to attend the festivities. At the ceremony, Jacob receives a life-altering piece of information that irrevocably entrenches him in the lives of his hosts.

This is were After the Wedding really begins, against the lush backdrop of an earthen, sun-kissed Danish countryside, at the wedding of a rich, carefree young woman. But as Bier peels layer after layer away from these picture-perfect lives, the melodrama begins to reveal itself. In abundance. But don’t fret! This is the high drama and emotional flair of Shakespeare, not Dr. McDreamy. Passion and greed and charity reined in by honest, full-bodied characters. Perhaps Jorgen and Helene’s absurdly rich daughter Anna (Stine Fischer Christensen) does not have the most relatable lifestyle, but the pains she deals with are all too familiar. After the Wedding is a veritable emotional rollercoaster, but with all the grace (and none of the creepiness) of a merry-go-round.