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Reviews

After the Wedding

Supreme human drama

By CHRIS WANGLER | April 18, 2007

3.0 Stars

VIDEO: Watch the trailer for After the Wedding.

After a 20-year absence, a determined idealist (Mads Mikkelsen) returns to Denmark to secure a donation for his struggling orphanage in Bombay. Jacob’s worldly benefactor (Rolf Lassgard) invites him to his daughter’s wedding, where Jacob runs headlong into his complicated past. Is it all a twisted ruse? Or a Babel-like coincidence? Subtle direction from rising star Susanne Bier should keep you guessing about the high cost of family secrets in this vivid and supremely human drama, one of this year’s five Best Foreign Film Oscar nominees. As Bier’s last two films, Brothers and Open Heart (both of which are being remade in the US), proved, few directors use reluctant smiles, simple gestures, and blank looks to convey so much. It’s a shame, then, to find so many forced crises and ambiguous motives in this more ambitious and frothily produced effort. Still worth a look.

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Topics: Reviews , Susanne Bier, Mads Mikkelsen

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