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After the Wedding
IFC Films
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for some language and a scene of sexuality
Starring
Mads Mikkelsen,
Sidse Babett Knudsen,
Rolf Lassgård,
Stine Fischer Christensen,
Mona Malm,
Christian Tafdrup,
Frederik Gullits Ernst,
and
Kristian Gullits Ernst
Sweeping, yet entirely intimate, After the Wedding is a shattering portrait of a family struggling with the fragility of life and the search for connection, healing, and forgiveness. (IFC Films)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
Foreign
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Susanne Bier (also story)
Anders Thomas Jensen (also story)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Susanne Bier
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: July 10, 2007
Theatrical: March 30, 2007
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
120 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
Denmark / Sweden |
| LANGUAGE(S): |
Danish / Swedish (with English subtitles) |
Original title "Efter Brylluppet"; Nominated, Best Foreign Language Film (Denmark), 79th Annual Academy Awards
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
A highly original and unusually powerful drama that deserves comparison to the great Scandinavian films of the past.
100
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
One of the best films to open in the Bay Area in 2007.
91
Portland Oregonian
Marc Mohan
It's a riveting character study/soap opera.
91
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Talented filmmaker Susanne Bier (Brothers), armed with an outstanding compositional sense, keeps control over the storms of melodrama that swirl in this rich weepie.
90
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
A thrilling -- and harrowing, and beautiful -- celebration of the unpredictability of life.
90
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
What feels at first like a quiet, straightforward picture builds into one of the richest and most satisfying of the year so far, in any genre or any language.
88
TV Guide
Ken Fox
With a third-act twist that outdoes that initial revelation, the film turns out to be a thoughtful exploration of paternity and responsibility. Much of the film's success lies in Bier's sensitive direction, but credit is also due to the fine cast, particularly Mikkelsen.
88
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
Bier primes us for a catfight, but she gives something tastier: a feast of reconciliation and love.
88
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
After the Wedding defies the odds: For once, the bigger the emotion, the truer the moviegoing experience.
88
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
Mikkelsen, like Jimmy Stewart, projects emotions with a slight twitch of a lip or narrowing of an eye. His long face - often handsome, sometimes plain, always cryptic - yields secrets slowly; you have to watch an entire film to know how his character feels and how you feel about him.
80
The New Republic
Stanley Kauffmann
Bier directs with a sense of motion, pleasant without pushing. Mads Mikkelsen, who plays Jacob, is an actor who absolutely belongs on the screen, a gentler sort of Jack Palance.
80
The Hollywood Reporter
Michael Rechtshaffen
Once again Bier demonstrates just how misleading appearances can be, as she artfully removes the veneers concealing the dark truths locked away by her intriguing characters.
80
Variety
Gunnar Rehlin
Thanks to a tight script, sharp direction and excellent actors, new film by Danish helmer Susanne Bier manages to be both emotional and engaging.
80
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
After the Wedding would never pretend to have any answers, but in hands this skilled the act of exploration itself couldn't be more illuminating, or more dramatic.
80
Time
Richard Schickel
A rich, intricate and very gripping movie.
80
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
Wedding has enough coincidences, screamfests, drunken rants and shock revelations to fill a season of "Desperate Housewives," but it comes across as finely textured drama, thanks to the performers, who make their characters so persuasive and three-dimensional, we're too mesmerized to care about the story's more overwrought or histrionic passages.
78
Austin Chronicle
Josh Rosenblatt
Unfortunately, in Bier’s world, where even the most innocuous acts can result in emotional ruin, redemption is purgatorial in its own peculiar way.
75
Baltimore Sun
Chris Kaltenbach
Those willing to overlook its emotional grandstanding will find much to admire and even more to think about in this Oscar-nominated Danish drama.
75
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
In After the Wedding Susanne Bier pushes the envelope further, toward operatic passion and the visual symbolism of Ingmar Bergman.
75
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
After the Wedding ends up feeling far weightier than it first appears, with its plot contrivances and unlikely coincidences generating such a messy range of emotions, they end up feeling a lot like real life.
75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
This is a fine tale of families and secrets, and its seemingly cold exterior gives way to something unexpectedly warm and soft inside.
75
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
After the Wedding is full of enough plot twists to supply a whole season of "Desperate Housewives."
75
New York Daily News
Elizabeth Weitzman
The characters may suffer once the bride walks down the aisle, but Bier, Jensen and their first-rate cast work together like a match made in heaven.
70
Village Voice
Rob Nelson
What happens after the wedding comprises a full three-quarters of Bier's epic, whose near-Biblical twists and turns--I wouldn't think of giving them away--are enough to fill four weepies.
70
The New York Times
Manohla Dargis
A fine and, on a scene-by-scene basis, often better than fine, if effectively unadventurous work.
70
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
Jensen's dramatic structure is so visible this sometimes seems like a late Rod Serling teleplay, but Bier has proved highly adept at merging conventional drama with the immediacy of the Dogma 95 movement.
67
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Noel Murray
With its soapy earnestness and use of suffering souls as set dressing, After The Wedding could be the cinematic equivalent of a Coldplay song. And while that isn't necessarily a slam, it isn't a recommendation either.
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Jennie Punter
At two hours, After the Wedding stretches out family flux too thinly and waits too long to reveal the final, devastating secret that we already know.
50
LA Weekly
Ella Taylor
Evidently, this bloated piece of Oscar-nominated nonsense was a big hit in Denmark, which makes me think there's a glittering future in that otherwise discriminating country for several seasons of "Days of Our Lives."
 The average user rating for this movie is 8.4 (out of 10) based on 27 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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