After the Wedding (M)
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3 stars
If you need a break from the incessant sound and fury of the cinematic superhero universe, this intimate family drama is a slow burn mystery, with some fine performances from its lead actors, in particular Julianne Moore, who also co-produced the film, which is directed by her husband Bart Freundlich.
The less you know about the story the better, so resist anyone telling you more than the initial setup of the plot. Michelle Williams plays Isabel, who runs an orphanage in Kolkata, India. When she runs short of money to fund the ongoing costs of housing and feeding the many street kids she is determined to care for, Isabel is required - against her will - to fly to New York to meet Theresa (Julianne Moore), a potential donor.
Theresa has made a fortune as a media entrepreneur, has a handsome, successful husband Oscar (Billy Crudup), twin boys aged nine, and an older daughter Grace (Abby Quinn) who is about to be married.
Too busy to take the scheduled meeting to discuss the donation to the orphanage, Theresa forces Isabel to stay in the big smoke longer than she wants and invites her to attend Grace's wedding. Feeling very much like an outsider at the extravagant event - the cost of which would have fed a thousand children in India - Isabel is clearly frustrated. It's at about this moment that the first of many devastating secrets are revealed, propelling the intimate human drama deeper and deeper into both a mysterious past and an uncertain future.
It's worth knowing that this is a remake of a 2006 Danish film of the same name, starring Mads Mikkelsen and directed by Susanne Bier. That version was nominated for Best Foreign film at the 2006 Academy Awards, with many critics praising Bier and her cast for rescuing the storytelling from what could easily have been a manipulative melodrama.
Freundlich proves himself a sensitive director, also carefully working his way around the emotional beats. Yet, there's something terribly restrained and polite about his approach, with characters continually let off the hook just as the stakes are raised with each reveal.
I couldn't help but think that there would have been so much more for the audience had this been nudged out of its pleasant middle-class comfort zone, either to that deadly, simmering space where reticence comes with a stiff-upper lip, or into the brutal emotional trenches of those short on emotional intelligence.
Moore - who won an Oscar for her portrayal of a linguistics professor with Alzheimer's in Still Alice - has established herself as the go-to actor when you need an emotionally troubled woman and, whilst she has one particularly charged scene, she's never allowed to let her portrayal of Theresa get near the abyss that is needed to make this story the powerful experience it could have been.
Likewise, Williams is constantly reasonable as Isabel: her idealism and passion for the underprivileged in India quickly jettisoned when the plot deems it necessary in order to head towards a kind of wholesome, happy family ending.
I couldn't help but think that there would have been so much more for the audience had this been nudged out of its pleasant middle-class comfort zone.
It is such a waste when this story is set up with some fabulous moral dilemmas: about the rich and the motivation to give, about the needy and the source of their salvation, about the past and what it takes to forgive.
But the possibility of a fiery clash of principles is ultimately rejected in favour of the even hand of middle-class equanimity. Crudup and Quinn round out the safe characterisations with professionalism, but these people are all rather vanilla: you just want someone to start swearing for once!
The film is beautifully shot by cinematographer Julio Macat, who makes fine use of the sumptuous locations, contrasting the orange warmth of Kolkata with the cool blues of New York. There are some stunning outdoor images too: fauna and flora in sunshine and rain, but director Freundlich seems to use these to punctuate the places where some dramatic acting might have done the trick a little less symbolically.
As for the India setting, the orphanage, and Isabel's favourite nine-year-old orphan Jai (Vir Pachisia) who she's raised as her own son: well, once the film ends you realise that it's all been a mere device to frame a safe family drama about the American dream.
It is nevertheless worth seeing to catch Moore and Williams at work.