Masterful Movie

Lack of good storyline.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

I'm shocked by the high user and critic ratings for this film. Every choice was confused. The hyper kinetic camera movement with documentary stylings and no lighting like a Dogme 95 film had no relationship to the Days of Our Lives plot twists and overwrought acting and dialogue. I think this got the over-inflated "international rating," where critics elevate mediocre foreign films because, let's be honest, how many great movies are coming out of Denmark these days? The melodrama was effective, in that it wrought emotion, but each plot twist felt arbitrary and absurd, and the central motivation of the principal figure didn't make sense. Certain scenes felt totally out of place, and should have been cut. And bookending the film in India made about zero sense, as very little of the film's story took place there.

AFTER THE WEDDING (Efter Brylluppet), Denmark, 2006. Viewed at 2006 Rome film festival.image1.jpegSusanne Bier's Danish drama, "After The Wedding" (Efter Brylluppet) is another milestone in the filmography of one of Europes top female directors and also one of Europes best actors, both Danes. Jacob (Mads Mikkelsen) an ex-pat Dane works in India taking care of homeless orphans. He has a particularly close relationship with a boy Pramod (age 8). His Indian overseer receives an offer from Copenhagen for big money to assist the project. This will require the mysterious ex-pat to return to Kbh after a long absence of many years to negotiate the transaction. He goes, very reluctantly, but not before solemnly promising the boy that he will be back for his birthday, only eight day away. In Copenhagen he meets the millionaire Jorgen (Rolf Lassgaard) who invites him to his daughter's wedding party. It turns out that Jorgen's current wife, Helene, (Sidse Babett- Knudsen) is an ex-flame of Jacob's. At the wedding party the young bride announces to the jolting discomfort of all that Jorgen is not her real, genetic father. It now turns out that she is actually the offspring of Jacob and Helen's affair many years before. This is most disturbing to Jacob who did not know of the existence of this now full-grown daughter, Anna (Stine Fischer Christensen), who has been raised by Jorgen as his own -- not to mention the daughter herself, who feels betrayed by everybody. This leads to severe complications, confrontations and soul searching by all involved. Jorgen, nevertheless, offers Jacob the sky -- and a fund in perpetuity in his name and that of Anna, his new found daughter. One condition: Jacob must remain in Denmark and not go back to India. Jacob is highly suspicious of the Millionaire's motives for all this unexplained and seemingly paradoxical generosity. The kicker is that Jorgen is dying but has revealed this to no one until now. What should Jacob do? -- accept the offer which would save all his young Indian charges from a life of depravation on the streets, or turn the offer down and go back to Bombay where he promised Pramod to be back in time for his birthday. Jorgen dies after a heart-wrenching last scene with the guilt feelings beset wife. Sob-sob. Funeral.Jacob back in India offers to take Pramod back to Denmark where he would lead a life of luxury. The kid refuses. He wants to stay with the people he knows best. Sob-sob. This is a very high-style sob-story that is also very depressing but, indisputably, an "auteur film" all the way. Susan Bier is one of the foremost female director's at work in Europe today and makes glossy, high concept, slick psychological studies with excellent actors. I know this was a very good film but I was in so much pain watching it that I couldn't wait for it to be over. Alex in the press room, Rome. Tomorrow, the arrival of El Grande from Tribeca, Roberto De Niro -- (Are you tawkin na ME! )

Susanne Bier's After the Wedding (2006) is a film that wants to be more than it is. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, After the Wedding (original title Efter brylluppet ) follows Jacob (Mads Mikkelsen), a Danish man who helps run an underfunded orphanage in India. Reluctantly, Jacob is sent back to Copenhagen in the hopes of securing a large donation from the wealthy businessman Jorgen (Rolf Lassgård) only to slowly realize that Jorgen has singled him out for a specific--and personal--reasons. Ultimately, it's a superficial movie that tries its best at playing deep, a film that never quite achieves the emotional impact for which it strives. After the Wedding starts off being a movie about how Jacob can't stand rich people. When told that their teacher is going to be sent to the rich-in-comparison land of Denmark, the children at Jacob's orphanage note his distaste of the wealthy. One boy says to Jacob, "Is it because the houses are far apart and the people are far apart?" This is about as profound as the film ever gets. When Jacob arrives in Copenhagen, the film shifts from being about the political to being about the personal. Jacob meets Jorgen, who at first seems to represent the sort of suave, detached rich man that Jacob despises. However, as the film lumbers forward Jorgen turns out to be a less sinister yet also a less interesting character in an almost lazily written transition. Jorgen is not the manipulative businessman looking for an easy way to buy some publicity, but, in fact, the husband of Jacob's ex-girlfriend, Helene (Sidse Babett Knudsen) and the man who raised Helene and Jacob's daughter (Stine Fischer Christensen), a child Jacob never knew existed until he attended her wedding at Jorgen's invitation. The film meditates on these messy familial relationships for a hot second before revealing what the audience has already guessed fifteen minutes ago, that Jorgen is actually dying and has called Jacob back to Denmark to take his place as the man of the family. The main weakness of After the Wedding is its thin script that presents a variety of familiar (dare I say cliché) themes without fully delving into any of them in a way that elevates them from mere banality. For instance, the idea of a man meeting his daughter for the first time after 22 years, the agony of a father organizing his life in preparation for his own death, the tenuous rekindling of a romance with the one that got away, and the struggle to provide aid and resources for underprivileged children are all perfectly fine topics that get thrown together and promptly skirted over in this film. Rather than taking the time to develop any of these themes with any sort of nuance or inventiveness, Bier simply plops them down into the movie and moves on to the next thing as if the audience is expected to have some sort of emotional reaction at just at the mention of these "serious" topics. Instead of communicating heart wrenching truths through the sort of strong writing that paves the way for arresting acting performances, Bier scrounges for emotion in a never ending stream of close-up shots of both human and (yikes) dead animal eyes. In a word, there's a lack of depth and artfulness to the screenplay and the film as a whole. It's a shame that Mads Mikkelsen's stoic stare isn't put to better use. That's not to say that After the Wedding is a disaster. There are some charming moments that arise from Bier's use of parallels in the movie, for example. In one such moment, the camera lingers on Jacob's nervous habits, (wiping the scuffs from his dress shoes, shifting his feet, hand tapping) and then closes in on similar anxious tics expressed by his daughter, Anna, thus visually portraying their heredity. Moreover, another parallel occurs when the camera pays special attention to Jorgen zipping up the coat of one of his young sons, only to show Jacob doing the same thing later in the film after Jorgen's metaphorical passing of the torch has been made clear. Sure, maybe these parallels could do with a bit more subtlety, but they're just clever enough that they inspire confidence that Bier at least has some sense of direction for the film. However, these strong moments are not enough to tip the balance in Bier's favor. All in all, After the Wedding is an unremarkable film bogged down by mediocre screen writing and an overeager desire for a quantity of ideas over quality.

I may be getting too sentimental in my old age but this film was so touching that I actually cried through quite a bit of it. What I found so touching was how essentially good almost all the characters were.The central character Jacob Pederson (Mads Mikkelsen) despite a nearly constant scowl on his face or a look of deep concern and perhaps worry is a man who really cares about right and wrong and other people. This is a sharp change from his misspent youth when all he cared about were...well what many of us cared about, having a good time. Now he runs an orphanage in Mumbai.While Jacob is the central character the most interesting character and the one with the biggest heart is the very rich Jorgen Lennart Hannson (Rolf Lassgard). Jacob has gone to Denmark to convince Jorgen to support his orphanage. It isn't clear that Jorgen will do so. He has choices for charity. But when Jorgen invites Jacob to his daughter's elaborate wedding, things change.I won't say any more about the plot since it is such an interesting and surprising plot. What I will say is that when Jorgen learns who Jacob really is in relationship to his family (and vice-versa!) he does something so caring, so surprising and so correct and so magnanimous that it will warm the cockles of the coldest heart and bring to tears the most cynical of viewers.And then we are back to Jacob and how he deals with what Jorgen has concocted. And he too does the right thing even though it completely changes his life and costs him something dear to his heart..I wish I could be more concrete. But see the film and I think you'll agree that this is the kind of movie that will make you feel good about people. It's a shame that it's rated "R." Perhaps if you have a tweener or even a bright 10-year-old you can watch it together. And you can talk about it. It is a great relationship film, and a great film for teaching young people about the real choices in life that can come up The acting was excellent. Mikkelsen brought the strength of character and a justified pride to the role of Jacob while Lassgard was warm and real and smart as Jorgen. Both Sidse Babett Knudsen, who played Jorgen's wife, and Stine Fischer Christensen, who played the bride, were intense and so vivid I felt I could touch them. (The intense close-ups on the eyes and faces—and I mean intense—made the actors almost leap off the screen.) But most of my praise must go to Susanne Bier who wrote the story and directed and to Anders Thomas Jensen who wrote the screenplay. The story and the movie are simply brilliant.—Dennis Littrell, author of the movie review collection, "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!"