After the Wedding stars Michelle Williams, Julianne Moore and Billy Crudup in a melodrama set in the twenty-first century, but has the pleasurable umami feel of a classic Hollywood silver screen movie with a big name actors like Joan Crawford, Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwyck who could be simultaneously tough as nails and soft as butter. I theoretically enjoy a movie that tries to shoot in the style of classic Hollywood as an intellectual exercise, but give me a film like After the Wedding that reflects today’s world, but is made in the spirit of the Golden Era of Hollywood, and I’ll eat it up.
Williams plays Isobel, a white woman who works at an Indian orphanage and is desperate to keep it going so when a woman with big pockets, Theresa, demands that she will only give money if Isobel comes to Manhattan to meet her in person, Isobel hates it, but has no choice. Theresa keeps finding ways to string along Isobel to stay longer, but to what end? Watch the movie to find out!
After the Wedding’s marketing did a crap job creating buzz about this film. I am generally turned off by films that use a respectable veneer to immediately segue into a film that is basically a Lifetime movie in vain attempts to elevate it by pretending that it is really a film about deep issues such as the plight of children in another country. The film slyly pokes at Isobel’s earnestness during the bookends of this film with the use of two characters, Preena, an Indian woman who runs the orphanage, (“We were here before God brought you to us, Isobel.”), and Jai, the child that Isobel is most attached to at the orphanage. The movie deftly distinguishes between what she thinks is crucial, and what are the orphanage’s real necessities. While Isobel doesn’t completely escape the ickiness of the white savior trope, there seems to be an awareness throughout the film that she has created a fantasy of her time at the orphanage and with the people that they don’t necessarily share, and we occasionally glimpse. Unofficially I associated Isobel with a character in The Dinner who is the only nice person, and she is awful because she does something good, adopts a kid, then abandons the child with a group of horrible people to go to an Ashram so who is the real villain? To be fair, Isobel is way more down to earth and less eyeroll worthy than that character, played brilliant (as always) by Chloe Sevigny.
I also mistakenly thought after watching After the Wedding’s preview that the big central mystery was a rapey one, and I was not terribly eager to watch that movie. I so like the cast that I actually spoiled the plot to determine whether or not I would see it in theaters or if I would put it in my queue. Well, if you had the same impression, you can breathe a sigh of relief because there is zero rape. I am actually shocked that I read all the spoilers, and it never occurred to me that this film is a remake of a Danish film starring two men with the same title, Efter brylluppet, starring Mads Mikkelsen, whom I adore, which I apparently saw and loved according to a Netflix rating that I made on October 27, 2010. Even though I rated the Danish film higher, I loved the American version more. It reminds me of a quote from Pedro Almodovar’s latest film, Pain & Glory, that it isn’t the movie that has changed (although it literally has), but me. I actually think spoiling the movie made me enjoy the American remake more because I could appreciate the performances more.
After the Wedding was brilliant to change the gender of the leads. It packs a more emotional punch because of the heavy cultural associations that women have to bear and how these two specific women conform and reject these images throughout their life. Williams’ acting in this film completely follows the instructions of the director in Pain & Glory to actors. Don’t throw all your emotion out there, but restrain it. Williams’ face projects every emotion, but most of her dialogue and body language is deliciously tight and restrained, which gives her character an unyielding and unapologetic strength unexpected in a depiction of a globetrotting do gooder who works with children. Someone like that, essentially a beggar who is at a disadvantage on every level, should not be able to stand on equal footing with Theresa (Mother Theresa reference?), a titan of industry who is the woman who has it all, wealth, power, family, beauty, who has the upper hand in every way, including control of information and money, but she does. Williams never gives an inch in any scene, and watching Theresa try to find a way to breach the hull and frequently fail makes the emotional payout of their culminating explosive scene so much more rewarding than it would have been with a different cast and filmmaker that aren’t as good at pacing.
After the Wedding manages to give each character the spotlight, including Abby Quinn, who plays Grace, the bride in the titular event, and looks nothing like her biological parents, casting. . In this cast, a lesser, younger actor would have played the role less naturalistically in order to try and get some shine in a cast with such talented and experienced actors, but Quinn’s lack of vanity and confidence makes her character feel emotionally organic in a plot that is so fantastic and absurd that if you can’t just accept it and go along for the ride, you may hate it. A lot of reviewers seem to complain about the melodramatic opulence of the movie, but not every movie has to be realistic just because it does not use special effects or unfolds in a fantasy world. Part of the joy of classic Hollywood and After the Wedding is vicariously living in the space of powerful, glamorous women who could get anything that they wanted, but were still vulnerable to the same pains and passions that the viewer suffers.
I related to all the characters in After the Wedding at some point. For all my poverty to middle class economic status, when Theresa asks, “Is there a lobster shortage or can they not get enough lobster,” I wanted to scream, “Yes, queen!” How many of us thought getting enough money to get what we want, no matter how modest, would be sufficient then woke up horrified to realize that you still have to fight and finagle to get any competence to accomplish the simplest tasks. Theresa walking the dog (on the trail of her vast estate), driving and singing loudly to Lady Gaga’s Edge of Glory (in her huge, expensive car) or screaming, “Do I have to be halfway around the world to get your help!?” (as she rushes after Isobel from her lavish conference room in a building that she probably owns in Manhattan) is as accessible as she is tantalizingly manipulative and teetering on the edge of understandable sociopathy, which once explained, is completely forgiven. Moore should get an award for actor whom you most want to drive around with for her role in this movie and Gloria.
I’m also happy for Crudup who had a chance to finally play a good character whose only flaw is that he loves his daughter so much. Even in Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, he is a sympathetic character who does horrible things given the context of the film (but in real life, he would be right). He usually plays morally slimy men of a certain caliber.
I really enjoyed After the Wedding and highly recommend it to you if you have similar cinematic inclinations or enjoy the cast.
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After the Wedding reminded me of Daredevil’s final season if it was not set in the Marvel Universe, including going to the same Indian restaurant that Karen and Matt went to on their only date in the second season! Also isn’t this movie seriously similar to Stepmom except Theresa starts the movie accepting her mortality and casting a replacement?