After the Wedding

In After the Wedding, Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale, the exceptionally good and well worth seeing Flame and Citron) works in a Bombay orphanage.  He teaches school.  He looks after the kids.  He does fundraising.  He’s poor, but he’s noble and happy.  And he’s got that lean, tanned, Adventure Guy thing working for him.

One day, his boss calls him in and tells him he must fly to Copenhagen to meet with a deep-pockets philanthropist whose money they need to keep the orphanage open.  Mikkelsen doesn’t want to go, but he consents.

So far, so good.  I’m with him right up ‘til he tells one of his waifs, “I’ll be back in ten days, tops.  I promise I’ll be there for your birthday.”  See, I know this is a drama, so I know there was no way he’s going to make it back in time for that birthday.  I know the waif will guilt him out, I know he’ll feel badly about it, and I know that it’ll all be a part of the second-act crisis.  Suspension of disbelief = blown.

Once Mikkelsen gets to Denmark, the donor inexplicably invites him to attend a family wedding.  Surely, weddings were put on this earth as a test of loyalty, for they rank among the most crushingly dull of all ceremonies.  Loyal friends and relatives can reasonably be called upon to attend, but glancing acquaintances?  No way – that’s too much to ask.  So here am I, an audience member of this film, watching a crushingly boring wedding through the eyes of a glancing acquaintance.  Not only do I not believe in the proceedings on the screen before me, I’m looking at my watch. 

But hey, this movie’s called After the Wedding, so there’s gotta be some drama coming, right?  Well, yeah, but I know that it’ll all lead to Mikkelsen calling the sad-faced waif back in India and telling him sorry, he won’t make that birthday after all.  And I’m pretty sure nothing’s going to explode, because this doesn’t seem like that kind of movie.  So now, instead of catching myself up in the personal drama of Mikkelsen, the donor, and other attendees of the titular wedding, I’m just watching the plot’s gears turn and waiting for it to be over.

A lot of people, people whose opinions I respect, love this movie.  I stopped believing, like, ten minutes in, and that was it.  Seeing After the Wedding was like attending a wedding: an excruciatingly dull affair I endured out of loyalty.  Your mileage, of course, may vary.