Facing up to life choices
In “After the Wedding,” a long-ago adoption sets complications in motion
There’s a Danish film called “After the Wedding,” which was released here in 2007 and nominated for the foreign film Oscar. It didn’t win — it had the bad luck to be nominated against “The Lives of Others,” which was even better — but it’s a great film.
The new “After the Wedding” is the American remake, and it’s fascinating. That is, it’s fascinating in that’s not even close to great, despite using the same scenario. Indeed, it would be a real lesson in filmmaking to watch both movies back to back, just to see how to do things and how not to do things. The new “After the Wedding” would be in the “how not to do things” category.
It’s not bad. That much could be said for it. But when you’re remaking one of the best films of the 21st century, “not bad” is not good. After seeing the movie, I started wondering if my memory of the Danish film was exaggerated. So I went back and watched scenes from it, and what a difference. The original film is a completely different experience.
Bart Freundlich, who adapted and directed the American version, made a couple of strategic mistakes. He made everyone a little nicer, and he lowered the stakes. So there’s less contention, and there are fewer doubts concerning each characters’ motives and goodwill. We don’t go into scenes unsettled and curious to know more. Instead we feel we know everyone going in, and thus we’re always just a little ahead of the characters and of the movie.
Freundlich’s big innovation was to switch the sexes of the two main characters. In the original version, a male social worker at an orphanage in India goes to the big city to meet with a very rich man who is thinking of bankrolling his charity. In the new version, the social worker is played by Michelle Williams and the billionaire is played by Julianne Moore.
Interesting idea. Two juicy parts for two great actresses. So far, so good.
But there’s a little problem. Now follow this, because it’s worth it: In the Danish version the social worker gets invited and goes to a wedding — the rich guy’s daughter is getting married. And when the (male) social worker gets there, guess who he runs into? The love of his life, a woman he hasn’t seen for 20 years. She’s married to the rich guy. And what’s more, the billionaire’s daughter
— the young woman getting married — turns out to be the biological daughter of the social worker.
Do you see the problem yet? It is possible for a man to have a child he doesn’t know about. It’s not possible for a woman to have baby she doesn’t know about. Of course, the movie accounts for this with a complicated adoption story. But the bottom line is that there’s an essential difference between finding out that you have a child you didn’t know existed and running into a grown child you gave up for adoption. The first is a bolt from the blue. The second is something you could reasonably expect might happen sooner or later.
There are other ways the malefemale switch distorts and mutes the effect of the earlier film — you never worry, for example, that Michelle Williams might punch somebody; in the Danish version, you’re never sure about Mads Mikkelsen. But the main problem here isn’t that, but rather the director’s tendency to avoid conflict. Freundlich likes big emotion, but conf lict for him is usually one person lashing out and the second person suddenly appreciating the purity of the other’s emotion. He doesn’t like to steer the ship straight into head winds. Instead, he steers clear, and then has the characters agree that it’s rather blustery out there.
Here and there, Julianne Moore gets to cut loose, but it’s almost too much. Michelle Williams looks like she wants to cut loose, but her chances are few. Still, these women are powerhouses, and “After the Wedding” lets them share the screen. It’s impossible to dislike a movie that does that.