After the Wedding

Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture in a Foreign Language, Susanne Bier's After the Wedding (2006) probably would have won had it not been for Von Donnersmark's profoundly thought provoking The Lives of Others. Restricting remarks on the plot to the most basic, a troubled man finds peace by working himself to the bone at an African orphanage, immersing himself in helping kids in desperate need. Not surprisingly, the orphanage is always on the brink of financial extinction, and suddenly he is contacted by a wealthy executive in Europe, whose corporation appears eager to support his cause.

If it sounds too good to be true.

What distinguishes the film is its mastery of capturing the angst and spiritual trauma associated with family and parent and child and what these relationships mean. I have experience in this area, and the film is brilliant. Situations include a man learning he is a father, facing a daughter he didn't know he had, and the daughter, thinking her father dead for her entire life, seeing him while he sees her. Some people have some explaining to do, and souls are engaged, and more often than not, everyone cares. I've been there. This film gets it as demonstrated by an intelligent, insightful script and the attention given to the acting with extreme awareness of the facial expressions, the energy behind the eyes, and the states expressed by the characters.

The “Before the Wedding” motifs have been beaten bloody six ways to Sunday through Saturday including leap year. Virtually every possible concoction of what connects to what and how under which circumstance has been explored. We love the love story of the two, separated by the drama and circumstances of choice, overcoming outrageous barriers, embracing for imminent bliss, roll credits. In reality people do get married. In reality the wedding is not the end of the story.