Come for the vows. Stay for the drama.
There will be plenty of people who walk out of the new indie drama After the Wedding who will declare it to be nothing more than pure Lifetime fodder. Some may, in fact, make this claim based solely on the trailer, while others will make this assessment just from the mere plot description. Such an attitude isn’t entirely the fault of any one kind of one modern audience member or the levels of warmth and empathy inherent within them. In many ways, the modern movie landscape, with its penchant for franchises and universes more prevalent than ever, can take the blame for most of the dismissiveness directed at a smaller movie such as this one. Rather than a question of taste, it’s the way that a landscape, one full of explosions and effects, has conditioned audiences to treat stories rooted in the intricacies of pure human behavior that is ultimately more responsible for any negative reaction to this wholly stunning film. Because of all of this, most mainstream audiences probably won’t know what to do with a story like After the Wedding. The ones who do, however, will embrace it for everything that it’s worth.
Writer/director Bart Freundlich adapts this remake of Suzanne Bier’s 2006 film in which an American woman named Isabel (Michelle Williams), who is in charge of an orphanage in India, finds she must travel to New York to meet with wealthy entrepreneur Theresa (Julianne Moore) in order to secure a significant amount of funding. With Theresa swamped due to the fact that her daughter Grace (Abby Quinn) is getting married that weekend, she insists that Isabel come to the wedding where they can discuss business once the ceremony has concluded. Reluctantly, Isabel goes to the wedding, where she encounters Therea’s husband Oscar (Billy Crudup) and an aspect of her life she never thought she’d have to face.
Even the intriguing trailer doesn’t prepare the audience for how much of a deeply layered story After the Wedding reveals itself to be. The structure of the film’s screenplay maintains a mysterious curiosity about it, almost as if it were a treasure map of cathartic human emotions with various ghosts of the past scattered throughout the way. Yet there’s an unwavering accessibility to the whole affair which not only makes it endearingly relatable, but universal in a way which transcends any kind of social experience. After the Wedding can be called many things; a love story, a story about regret, a tale of reconciling the past, the yearning for peace and the totally consuming art of atonement. The way in which Freundlich presents all of these somewhat tricky themes is so delicate and refreshing, letting them wash over his audience in scenes which range from breathtakingly simple to deceptively powerful. I haven’t seen Bier’s original film, but witnessing Freundlich’s version (featuring a screenplay he no doubt had a hand in adapting), it’s clear what drew the writer/director to the story and how he successfully made it his own. The filmmaker has always had such a keen grasp on the complexities which plague most people. Whether it be familial strife in The Myth of Fingerprints, or the comedic nature of romance in Trust the Man, Freundlich’s gift of bringing to the screen such complex motifs (as seen through the grayness of ordinary men and women) has never failed to impress. Even if After the Wedding isn’t organically, his own film, in many ways, it so clearly is.
I can see how some would assume that After the Wedding would be ripe for the kind of made-for-TV movie fodder that legions of fans made popular for decades. Yet Freundlich’s film is more in line with the works of Merchant/Ivory than Danielle Steele thanks to an approach that that never once feels false. The most striking storytelling method Freundlich employs here is his use of subtlety, which he weaves in such a way that gives the utmost power to the various revelations which are scattered throughout the film. After the Wedding doesn’t need to venture into soapy territory in order to convey its drama; it accomplishes that goal by being honest to both the characters and the people watching them. A scene in which one character walks into a room where another character greets them is striking in the way the two instantly read each other, mesmerizingly changing the pulse and energy between them, which can’t help but radiate onto the audience. Another breathtaking moment can be found in a late-in-the-game emotional breaking down of one of the main characters, causing another character to comfort them as much as they can until they themselves begin to lose their own strong hold due to the overpowering nature of the moment. While I won’t divulge too much of these or many other plot points in an effort to protect many of the film’s precious secrets, suffice it to say that in a lesser effort from a lesser filmmaker, such beautifully powerful moments would cease to exist.
To describe the three leads as nothing short of superb in their respective roles would almost be an insult to them at this point in their vast and storied careers. Still, it’s impossible to not be wowed by the way Williams, Moore, and Crudup not only find specific places for their characters to explore their various forms of vulnerability, but also by the way they each make a case for them in the eyes of the audience. Only an actor of a VERY specific caliber can do that, and After the Wedding is lucky to have three of them. Also, even if the marketing remains coy on the character of Grace (who is revealed to be more important as the film progresses), the novice Quinn gives one of the film’s most accomplished performances, deftly keeping up with her impressive co-stars.
As emotionally and dramatically sound as After the Wedding is, it isn’t without its shortcomings. Some of the setups Freundlich settles on are a bit on the nose in their aim of conveying mood as well as events which have taken place, and the film features far more shots of Williams draped in a red shawl staring pensively across the New York City skyline than any movie needs. Yet these minor aspects have no bearing on the effectiveness of After the Wedding as the kind of late-summer indie drama you can sink your teeth into. Those whom the film is meant to reach will get plenty from it, including gorgeous cinematography, an involving script, and characters who, each in their own way, prove there’s very little about life that is actually black and white. In an age when many who go to the movies are now used to “Marvel emotion,” it’s perhaps easy to take for granted, or perhaps even altogether forget, the way real people live and feel in a world firmly grounded in reality. Luckily, After the Wedding does more than a stellar job of helping us remember.
